


PUBLICATIONS OF THE ROCHESTER 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY, No. II. 



SKETCH 



OF 



THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIFE 



OF 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS, 



OF 



SALEM, CONNECTICUT. 



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RECEIVED 

FEB 19 1904 




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PUBLICATIONS OF THE ROCHESTER 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY: ^^^o. II 



SKETCH 



OF 



THE PUBLIC AND PKIYATE LIFE 



OF 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS, 



OF SALEM, CONNECTICUT, 

WRITTEN" BY HIMSELF, AND LEFT AS A TOKEN" OF 
AFFECTION" TO HIS CHILDREN. 

Together with Reminiscences by his Children, and 
A Genealogy of the Hopkins Family. 



ROCHESTER, N. Y. 
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY, 

1898. 






E. R. ANDREWS, PRINTER, AQtlEDUCT ST., ROCHESTER, N. Y. 



P. 

Author. 



PEEFATORY :N0TE. 



At tlie annual meeting of the Rocliester Historical Society on tlie evening of 
March 14th, 1898, the President, Mr. George M. Elwood, being in the Chair, 
Dr. Augustus Hopkins Strong read to the Society extracts from the manuscript 
autobiography of his grand-uncle, the Hon. Samuel Miles Hopkins, LL.D. 
As an introduction to his reading, Dr. Strong made the following remarks: — 

"In the archives of the family of "which I am an unworthy representative, 
there has been for the last fifty years a little manuscript book which was writ- 
ten just sixty-six years ago. It is a treasui-e which has never been made public, 
and, so far as I am aware, it has never until this evening been read outside of 
the family to which it belongs. It is a sketch of the public and private life of 
Samuel Miles Hopkins, of Salem, Connecticut, written by himself and left as 
a token of affection to his children. I propose to read to you this evening 
some portions of this little autobiography. Before beginning my reading how- 
ever, let me connect it with the proper work of this Historical Society, by say- 
ing that the author of the sketch, who was born in 1772 and died in 1837, and 
who received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Yale College in 1832, was in 
his later life a man of note in Western New York. He was the founder of the 
village of Moscow in Livingston County, was a resident successively of Moimt 
Morris and of Geneva, and among other offices held those of State Senator and 
Member of Congress. 

"I take particular interest in the narrative because he was a grand-uncle of 
mine. There are others here however who are more directly related than I, 
and are in the direct line of descent from him. I refer to Mr. John H. Hoja- 
kins, and to Mrs. J. P. Varnum, his grandchildren. The fact that the autobiog- 
raphy is addressed to his childi-en, and was never written for publication, lends 
a tender interest to many parts of it, for it is the frank unfolding of an affec- 
tionate, highly cultivated, and naturally noble mind. It is the life story of a 
man of unusual endowments, whose lot was cast in stirring times, and who 
made his mark upon his generation. The account of his education, his early 
connection with Chancellor Kent and Aaron Burr, his experiences in England 
and in France at the time when the first Napoleon was rising to power, his 
adventures in the untrodden American wilderness, his misfortunes and suc- 
cesses, his religious faith and devotion, is too graphic and interesting to be lost. 



IV KOCHESTER HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

It contains valuable material for our early history, and for that reason I have 
thought it a quite ajipropriate theme to occupy our time for this session of the 
Rochester Historical Society." 

Before proceeding to read from the autobiography, Dr. Strong made some 
allusion to the ancestry of Samuel Miles Hojikins, and to the distinguished 
men who have borne the Hopkins name, among them Dr. Lemuel Hopkins, 
the poet, of Hartford, Conn., who exerted no small influence as a -vvi-iter of 
political and satirical verses diu'ing our Revolution; Stephen Hopkins, one of 
the signers of the Declaration of Independence; Dr. Samuel Hopkins, of New- 
port, R. I., the great New England theologian, whose sermons stirred up the 
tirst organized political action against slavery in America; Esek Hopkins, the 
first Commodore of the American Navy; President Mark Hopkins, of WUliams 
College, one of the noblest teachers of young men and one of the most influ- 
ential writers on ethical science that this country has produced; and Professor 
Samuel M. Hoj)kins, D.D., the son of the author of our sketch, and for many 
years Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the Auburn Theological Seminary. 
Further information in regard to the Hopkins Family has been embodied in 
the Genealogy which follows this Sketch. 

At the conclusion of Dr. Strong's reading, Theodore Bacon, Esq. , displayed 
a book published in 1826. It was entitled "Reports of Cases Argued and 
Determined in the Court of Chancery of the State of New York, volume I. , by 
Samuel M. Hopkins, CounseUor-at-Law. " Chancellor Sanford, Mr. Bacon said, 
appointed Mr. Hopkins as Reporter in his Court. The decisions of the Court 
were published in one volume, and this volume in point of accuracy is exceeded 
by few in the English language. Mr. Charles E. Fitch mentioned a Fourth of 
July Oration which was delivered by Mr. Hopkins in Syracuse in the year 1820. 
Continuing, Mr. Fitch expressed his judgment that the document which had 
been read by Dr. Strong was far too valuable for purposes of history to be kept 
from the jsublic. The result was the appointment of a Committee consisting of 
Dr. Strong, Charles E. Fitch, and George P. Humphrey, to confer with the 
f amUy in regard to the publication of the manuscript. The assent of the family 
having been obtained, the autobiography itself is now published by the Roch- 
ester Historical Societv. 



SKETCH 

OF THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIFE OF 

SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 



To MY Children 



For some years past, I have intended to leave behind me, for your 
perusal, a short account of the more important events of my life. 
That life, indeed, has not been conspicuous, nor to my fellowmen of 
much importance. On the contrary, it has been, most generally, a 
scene of disappointment, leading to results very different from the 
sanguine hopes of early years. But it has also been a scene of bless- 
ings and mercies ; and my estimate of the value of life itself is much 
more favorable than that of moralists in general. My principal 
motives, however, for leaving any memorial of a life of so little 
general interest, are, that it will be a token of the dear love I bear 
you ; that it may incidentally afford lessons, or warnings ; that it 
may possibly (though I am not sure that I shall write enough at 
large for that) afford me the opportunity to note some thoughts 
which may interest you ; and finally that I think some sketch of my 
early recollections may transmit to you who are to follow, such 
views of society, manners and things, as one generation may be glad 
to receive from those who went before. I will also add a few mem- 
oranda concerning our family and ancestors. 

Hitherto I have obtained no certain knowledge of my progenitors, 
farther back than four generations previous to myself, that is to my 
great grandfather. His baptismal name is not known to me, but 
according to some memoranda which my father sent me, he removed 
from Hartford, in Connecticut, to Waterbury, which must have been 
towards the year 1700. The family-tree which I intend to annex 
will show our direct line, and such other of his 'descendants as are 
known to me. 



SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 



In tlie Massachusetts Historical Collections, vol. 8, p. 207, is an 
account of the first settlement at Plymouth, from which it appears 
that on board the first ship was a person of the name of Stephen 
Hopkins, who was of some consideration. Stephen has been a 
hereditary name among us. Dr. Daniel Hopkins of Salem, Mass., 
wrote me that he had no doubt but that Stephen was our common 
ancestor. His brother Samuel of Newport (in writing his own life, 
I believe) made a remark to this effect, that, so far as he could learn, 
he descended from a stock who were Puritans as far back as Queen 
Elizabeth. I now add that, as far back as I learn, they have been 
very universally honest men. I think it is very common that bless- 
ings descend through a long train of the descendants of pious parents. 

My grandfather removed from old Waterbury to the parish or 
" society " of Salem (part of that town), which must have been about 
1730. I believe the family were large original proprietors in the 
town. He, my grandfather, and father, lived at tlie old family place 
until my father's removal to Goslien in 1774. My father's mother 
was of the Tallmadge family of Long Island (from which place was 
Col. B. Tallmadge of Litchfield, a cavalry officer in the Revolution- 
ary War), My mother's name was Miles. My grandfather married, 
as his third wife, the widow Ann Miles of Wallingford (her family 
name was Daily), who had several children. They all removed to 
Salem and made one family, with my grandfather; both families 
lived in great and uninterrupted friendship during their lives. 
My mother was the daughter of this third wife of my grandfather. 
This grandmother Miles, who lived till my age of about 18 or 19, 
was a woman of uncommon mind and information ; well versed in 
many things which our country women of that age did not generally 
study, — such as Geography, etc. She was a reader of Josephus and 
of Ancient History, and brought to my grandfather, among other 
books, the works of Milton, Young, Rowe, and, I believe, of Pope. I 
remember the Turkish Spy and several others. These added variety 
to the collection of strict Calvinistic theology and Puritanical ser- 
mons, which were at the old Hopkins residence, and they inspired a 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 



strong love of reading in the whole family. My father once drew 
up for my use some notices regarding our families, but he was so 
much engaged at the time that he did not ever revise tiiem. It was 
soon after the death of my uncle, Dr. Samuel Hopkins, hereafter 
mentioned. Thinking what he wrote rather too hasty for presenta- 
tion as a whole, I now extract the following remarks from it. 

My grandfather died in 1T96. He was a grave, thoughtful, 
observing man, of rather a melancholy character, which perhaps 
might be increased by his religious views ; for in religion he was 
almost of the strictest sect of the Puritans, whose excellencies and 
defects he at once exemplified. His habit of close and careful obser- 
vation, both upon moral and physical objects, and self-acquired way 
of reasoning upon them, made him in many respects a wise man. 
But he was rather diffident of himself, and stated his opinions and 
conclusions with much caution. His reading was chiefly that of the 
practical religion of the seventeenth century. I believe his personal 
attention to religion was excited by the preaching of Whitefield. In 
person, he was tall and spare, and in health rather delicate, and became 
accustomed to regulate his diet and clothing with much care. Yet 
he lived to 75, and then died of accidental small-pox. His second 
son, Samuel, was in many respects one of the most extraordinary 
men I ever knew, yet he has left nothing behind him which will at 
all do him justice. He will live a little longer in the love and admi- 
ration of all the good and wise of his acquaintance who survive, and 
then the memory of him will be lost to all human view, like that of 
the vast multitude of men to whom God has given extraordinary 
powers, and who shine awhile and then are extinguished for ever. 
I should shrink from any attempt to write his character ; but will 
try to throw in a few detached remarks to give some idea of him. 
The portrait of him which you see in the drawing-room is a copy by 
Trumbull, taken about 1825, from a portrait in possession of James 
Watson, which original Trumbull had taken for Watson as early as 
1794. If the family of Mr. Watson ever sell that original, it ought 
to be obtained, first, by Hopkins McCracken, the only living descend- 



4 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

ant of ray uncle, and in default of him by some of you. You -svill 
see in the portrait a head and face, which I think is hardly excelled 
by the superlative beauty of Milton's. The intense glare of that eye, 
which you observe in the portrait, was the true interpreter of a mind 
immersed in intense thought. The whole cast of his mind and there- 
fore of his conversation was in the highest degree bold, strong, orig- 
inal; and his thoughts were very often uttered in nervous and 
concise figures of speech, entirely peculiar to himself and full of 
instruction and light. The habits of society had not then reached 
that discipline and pretended polish, which at this day would sup- 
press or much limit that style. But I think that his peculiar faculty 
was the intuitive and almost instantaneous perception of truth. 
Anecdotes of his extraordinary sagacity are still repeated with admi- 
ration among his surviving friends and by patients, some of whom, 
now nearly thirty years after his death, still delight to tell how he 
saved their lives, and that by means most extraordinary. While I 
write this, I have in mind, as an example which you know, that of a 
venerable lady who was subject to bleeding from the lungs. She 
had been under the care of a physician, w^ho according to all known 
good practice had stopped the hem.orrhage, and supposed, as all oth- 
ers did, that he had saved her life. But as she continued very ill, 
ray uncle, who intimately knew her constitution, was sent for. His 
first measure was to set the lungs bleeding again, and she is yet alive. 
I presume the world never saw bolder practice ; and woe to the phy- 
sician who, with less sagacity than his, shall dare to imitate it. He 
was called too in the night (sleeping soundly from fatigue and 

exhaustion) to rise and visit his particular friend, Dr. B , who 

was said " to be dying with the colic." " He hasn't got the colic," 
said he, half asleep and half awake, while dressing. When he 
arrived the patient was already surrounded by other physicians, wiio 
stood aghast but pi*esumed not to murmur as they saw him begin to 
ply the sufferer with tremendous stimulants, internal and external. 
It was a repelled or wandering rheumatism, and any treatment for 
colic would have killed the man. All this he had foreseen and 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 5 

understood before the attendants could believe that he was awake. 
When the stricture was removed from the bowels to a limb, he 
reproached his friend, Dr. B.: " Did I not tell you that that wander- 
ing rheumatism would kill you, unless you took care of yourself?" 
The cooling treatment in fevers, the puerperal especially ; and wine 
in fevers since called typhus, 1 believe, were then thought madness ; 
but his patients got well. Some such cases were the subject of much 
newspaper discussion. 

The intuitive discernment of truth was not confined to professional 
matters. I remember instances which related to subjects very for- 
eign to his usual studies ; one even in relation to the operation of 
the judiciary' in the Constitution of the United States, lately adopted. 
His writings were almost always occasional, and generally humorous 
and satirical. On a review of tliem, they seem to lose so much of 
their force and point by the change of times and things, that I 
scarcely think they ought in justice to him to be published. He 
removed from Litchfield to Hartford about 1784. Soon after this, 
and until 1789, the attention of all intelligent and good men became 
deeply engrossed by the great question of an efficient Federal Union. 
The timid, the less informed and jealous, were fearful of delegating 
great powers which might, they feared, be used against public liberty. 
But more than all this was the rivalry of little great men and second- 
rate politicians, who foresaw that their petty importance would be 
obscured by the power of real talent, which must be brought into 
action to support the general government. To bring the mass of 
the people to right views and decided action on this point required a 
power of persuasion and instruction and a mass of talent, such as, I 
presume, was never before nor since exerted before any people. 

At that time there resided in Hartford, John Trumbull, author of 
McFingal ; Col. David Humphries, Oliver Wolcott, Joel Barlow and 
my uncle ; and a few years later Theodore Dwight, Richard Alsop 
and others. The first set of these made an informal club, meeting 
often, and by joint effort furnishing something in every possible 
style of writing, calculated to convince and pursuade a reading and 



6 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

thinking people; but much of all this was conveyed in the form of 
tale, fable, mock heroics and irony; and much that is now lost forever, 
was I conceive, in a spirit of humor and good sense, not inferior to 
that of the age of Swift and Arbuthnot. I remember a plan for a 
legislative body, to be composed of old women only. Then they got 
up a heroic poem, called the Anarchiad, supposed to have been dis- 
covered among the ancient works at Marietta and more ancient than 
Homer, from which he and all subsequent poets had borrowed 
unblushingly. The plot of the poem was the final reduction of 
human institutions and all else to their original chaos. The leading 
demagogues of the day were made to figure as the agents and gen- 
erals of the grand march ; and the speeches and scenes of the ancient 
poets, but above all, of Milton's infernal legion and nether world, 
were parodied and travestied with inexpressible gravity, always 
noting the flagrant plagiarisms of Homer, Yirgil, Milton & Company. 
I remember the plan of some games instituted by the Anarch, in 
which the first prize was awarded to the chief who could see the 
farthest into total darkness, and in which all the leading popular 
factionists of the day were made to contend. But it was not humor 
alone. Ancient History was ransacked and contributed its share, 
and all the resources of reason were called forth, aided by a spirit of 
the deepest feeling for the unparalleled interests then at stake. 
Talent and the love of country, and a feeling of deep concern for 
the good of mankind, in that instance presided. Oh ! that it might 
ever be so. 

I have been thus particular on this subject because it will disclose 
to you a fact which history — false, superficial, partisan, vulgar — will 
never tell to posterity. It is indeed sometimes told that the war of 
the Revolution was not to repel oppression felt, but foreseen. But 
the Federal Constitution was a much greater effort of just discern- 
ment in a whole people ; and it required a much greater sacrifice of 
old habits, of local interests, fears and jealousies, and a much wiser 
foresight of impending dangers. This was mainly accomplished by 
the pens of that vast corps of very able men scattered throughout 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 7 

the country, and which that age produced so fruitfully. But what 
idea does it give of the American people as they were fifty years 
ago ! This, however, is what history will never explain, because the 
writers will never know it. 

I add but a word more of my uncle. He was kind, humane, most 
sincerely disinterested, so that he laid up but little property from a 
practice so immense that cases were sent to him in writing, for con- 
sultation, from distant states. Plis devotion to his patients was 
unbounded, and he always contended to the very last against the 
King of Terrors. He even rode in bad weather to see the sick, 
•when it was said that he was less able than they to go out, and when 
he knew (who always watched and understood the progress of the 
■consumption in his own lungs) that himself could not last long. 
Among the multitude of patients who came to consult him, were 
many of the intemperate. There was generally no hope for them, 
■and when they retired I well remember how he would turn to his 
pupils and lecture from their cases. These were the scenes which 
made me at the age of fourteen form my vow or resolution of per- 
fect temperance. 

Of my father, I shall say less. He was a farmer. Of all the men 
I ever saw he was the most truly just, impartial, and disinterested. 
He was ingenious, laborious and persevering ; unsparing of himself, 
and sparing of the labors and sufferings of all other creatures, brute 
and human, and most kindly affectioned towards all that could think 
or feeh I can now recollect single expressions of his to me in boy- 
hood, which taught me lessons of justice and humanity that, I hope, 
liave influenced me through life. Not having much time for read- 
ing, he was thrown back upon himself for topics to engage his ever 
active mind. And, as moral and metaphysical speculations are those 
which can be best prosecuted out of the closet and in the midst of 
laborious occupations, so he dwelt much upon them. He had found 
time, however, to read nearly all of value that had been written on 
mental philosophy. He understood Locke, Hume, and Edwards, 
and could repeat Pope's Essay on Man, I believe, nearly every line 



8 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

by rote, and this too without ever intending to learn it by raemorv. 
He had also read much of the best old English divines — Tillotson, 
Sherlock, Leeds, and others whom I have forgotten. How he found 
time to read them I cannot imagine ; but once reading was enough, 
for he forgot nothing of importance which lie had ever known, 
besides all the thoughts of importance he incorporated into his own 
mass. It is my opinion that his speculations, if reduced to writing, 
would have made some clear addition to all that has been before- 
written on heads of metaphysical inquiry. Indeed, he was desired 
by me and some other of his friends to reduce his views to writing, 
but his engagements prevented it. In his advanced years, when he 
had removed near me on the Genesee river, I engaged him in occa- 
sional conversations in order to obtain some of his ideas more accu- 
rately ; and I think I comprehended him on some points ; on others, 
I recollected them from my youth, I may possibly attempt to give 
some sketch of the whole. I never have heard him on these sub- 
jects without being struck by some idea that was new to me, and 
this makes me apprehend that many very valuable thoughts have 
died with him. In the practical concerns of life, he had much of 
the quick and intuitive perception of truth which I have mentioned 
in the case of my uncle. He would see the right way of doing a 
thing, and see it instantly. At Goshen they were building a steeple 
to the church, the spire of which was finished below, and was to be 
raised by machinery and placed on the square part of the tower. 
When raised nearly to its place, a gin gave way in such a manner 
that the spire swung out of the right direction and hung leaning 
over, while its great weight and unequal pressure was thrown upon 
some braces, which were yielding and breaking gradually. It seemed 
alike fatal to the workmen to fly or stay, and consternation seized 
the nmltitude, while the impending mass threatened ruin, and the 
master builder was without resource. The most appalling circum- 
stance was that there were several men so placed that they could not 
be extricated, and if the mass fell they must fall with it. At this 
moment of horror, my father saw where he could attach a chain so 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 9 

as to secure the works from further pressure in the wrong direction 
and probably prevent the falh He seized an ox chain, wound it 
round his neck and shoulders, and mounted rapidly to the scene of 
danger, regardless of the calls of his friends, whose attention was 
now engrossed by the awful danger of his enterprise. He attached 
the chain in such a manner as to save the crushing braces and all 
was made safe. 

My father and mother professed their faith in Christ before my 
remembrance, and were members of the Presbyterian church. In 
the time of my youth, difficulties arose in the church at Goshen, 
owing to the overbearing and intemperate conduct of the minister, 
who was supported by a small majority of the church, but con- 
demned by the opinion of councils and other ministers and 
churches. Those subjects were agitated with intense eagerness for 
years, during much of which time my father was excluded from 
church ordinances. When the excitement was over, and reason and 
charity, I hope, resumed their sway, the church rescinded all their 
measures, and restored my father, without any concessions whatever 
from him, to his right of membership. 

I was born at Salem in Waterbury, Kew Haven Co., Connecticut, 
on the 9th of May, 1772, at a house on the Hopkins farm, a place 
about a quarter or half a mile south from the principal dwelling, and 
which he now inhabited, as his father and perhaps his grandfather 
had before him. 1 mention it on account of a tradition, which I 
imperfectly remember, to this effect. My grandfather's oldest 
brother, John, was to have removed to some far distant place (Stock- 
bridge, I suspect), but going there he found danger from the Indi- 
ans, and so returned and lived in this house (which my grandfather 
did or was to occupy). This great-uncle John I remember. I have 
therefore seen a man who, in effect, was driven back by fear of the 
Indians to within fourteen miles of New Haven. In 1826 I visited 
the old Hopkins place. I had before seen it at the age of 16, and 
before that at about 9 years old. No change except the slow work- 
ings of time upon wooden buildings a century old ! But the grape- 



10 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

vine was gone and the vast apple and pear trees rotting down with 
age. I remember a scene which must have happened at the house 
where I was born, which must have been in April, 1774, when I was 
23 months old. I was in petticoats and was mortified about it. 
Memory now presents to my view that house, the dooryard and the 
stone foundation and embankment as they then were, and when 
more than fifty years after I saw the same place I found the same 
picture was entirely faithful. 

About May, 1774, my father removed to Goshen and in June fol- 
lowing, being 25 months old, I received a bad cut in my foot. I 
vividly and distinctly remember several facts about it, and such 
peculiarly as a child would be struck with. But 1 never have 
remembered the cut itself ! Being the oldest grandchild, nephew, 
&c., on both sides, I was in much request and often sent for, to and 
from Salem. I must have been at the latter in the fall of 1777, for 
I well remember my grandmother's reading much in the papers 
about Ty, for so the name of Ticonderoga was written and printed 
for brevity ; and I remember feeling a sentiment of peevish dislike 
at the frequent repetition of the senseless sound. From that time 
my recollection furnishes a good many pictures of men and things 
pertaining to Revolutionary times. Hence my frequent remark that 
perhaps the period of my life embraces, up to this time, the most 
interesting period of sixty years in civil history that has yet occur- 
red. I remember something of the young men hurrying off to meet 
Burgoyne, the deep and anxious solicitude with which my father 
and his neighbors would talk of public affairs. I remember my 
father being absent with the militia who marched in defence of New 
York in 1776, when I was a few months more than four years old. 
I very well remember the rejoicings at the capture of Cornwallis. 
I have seen General Washington, been a little acquainted with the 
elder Adams, and with Jay, Schuyler, Clinton, Pickering ; have been 
a good deal acquainted with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and John 
Marshall ; and have been conversant in business of the bar with that 
very extraordinary man Aaron Burr, and that very admirable and 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. H 

wonderful man Alexander Hamilton. If, then, we add that tlie 
entire history of the Federal Constitution and the entire revolutions 
of Europe from 1789 come within my fresh recollections, you will 
admit that we must look forward and not backwards for a more 
important period in temporal affairs. 

I remember some of the pangs of a little child sent to school and 
condemned to sit in total inaction of body and mind for six hours a 
day. Then the horrors of being compelled to commit to memory 
unintelligible jargon. " What is the chief end of man ?" " What 
are the decrees of God ? " " What is grammar ? " Look at and 
recall the answer to the second question, and imagine the cruelty of 
putting a child of five or six years old to commit it to memory ! The 
imperfect recollection now and then flits across my mind with feelino-s 
of indescribable sadness. How happy am I, then, to live in an age 
when the sunny morning of lovely infancy is not clouded by suffer- 
ings of this kind ! I suspect that much of the irreligion which per- 
vaded in the times of our admirable Puritanical ancestors had its 
foundation in the disgust which was caused by injudicious and com- 
pulsive teaching. By 10 or 11, 1 had well recovered from all dislike 
of the school. I had thoroughly studied the old system of Geoo-ra- 
phy (Salmon's) which preceded Guthrie ; and I devoured Robinson 
Crusoe and Voltaire's History of Charles XII., and it was decided 
that I must have an education, if possible. 

In the winter of 1784 I was sent to live in the family of Eli 
Curtis, Esq., of Watertown, and to go to school. Mrs. Curtis was 
daughter of my father's uncle John, before mentioned. In 1781 I 
went to live in the family of my uncle. Dr. Lemuel Hopkins of Hart- 
ford, where I continued most of the time for four years. There I 
laid the foundation of what classical knowledge I have, at the Free 
Grammar School, and under the excellent instruction of Mr. Solomon 
Porter. It seemed a matter of course that I should be a physician • 
and I perceived, in after years, that my uncle, who had no son had 
looked forward to me as a possible associate in future practice. In 
1786 I gave myself wholly to Anatomy, Physiology and Medicine. 



12 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

I read Cheselden, Winslow, Haller, Hunter, Boorhaave, Van 
Sweeter (18 vols.) and Cullen, and I wrote abstracts and treatises, 
and began to lay up written treasures of curious facts. But it was 
decided that I was to go to college, chiefly on the motion of my 
grandmother. 

On commencement day, 1787, I left the farm work (at which, 
during haying and harvest, I had helped my father), and took my 
classical books, which for a year had been neglected. I was to enter 
the Sophomore class, and I had six weeks to revise all the studies 
preparatory to the Freshman year and to get, for the first time, a 
large portion of those for that year also. I had got an idea that I 
could do anything. So, in that time, I read all Virgil, a good many 
orations of Tully, all of the Greek Testament, the greater part of 
Horace, and revised my Arithmetic, Geography, &c. Those were 
days at once of delight and sadness to my dear mother, for she fore- 
saw that my course in life would lead me far from her, and that it 
would be but a few weeks that she could ever again see me near to 
her, to know that I was in health, and to nurse me, and to read to 
me when I had a cold. 

I passed three years at New Haven, — ardent, intensely studious, 
factious, infidel, self-opinionated, loving my friends devotedly and 
beloved by them. I scarcely doubted but I was to accomplish some 
great thing upon the earth. By the diligent improvement of time I 
laid in a stock of knowledge upon many subjects, particularly His- 
tory, for the study of which I have had no other opportunity. The 
spirit of Yale College was, at that time, a spirit of literary ambition 
and of infidelity. But I must not enlarge upon these scenes, nor 
trust my pen to begin to talk of friends, who with me are soon 
to quit the world, when the memory of us and all that concerns us, 
will be like the memory of the youth who lived before the flood. 
Farewell, — farewell ! Youth and the friendship of youth — with all 
its hopes and dazzling expectations — I review you in order for the 
last time ; and we are hastening hence to stand before the Judge of 
the whole earth. 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 13 

I was not in good favor with the faculty, and took no pains to 
<jonciliate their good will. But they gave me one of the three Eng- 
lish orations for the commencement exhibition, which were then 
reputed the highest appointments. I refused to attend, and they 
refused me my degree, and the degree of LL. D., which they con- 
ferred when Samuel entered college, was tlie first and only one I 
ever received. Having resolved on the profession of law, I entered 
in the fall of 1791 the office of Judge (then Mr.) Reeve, in Litclifield. 
His law school contained more than twenty pupils, and was already 
celebrated throughout the Union. He was altogether an admirable 
man, of a purity, sincerity, guilelessness of heart, such as I have seen 
in few men in this world. His daily lectures were most happy, from 
his admirable faculty of carrying always on, a view of the reason and 
history of every principle. I have no doubt but his lectures are yet 
felt and long will be, in their happy influence upon the judicial 
department of our country's public economy. At a subsequent time, 
he became a most devoted Christian. Admissions to the bar were 
committed entirely to the members. In March, 1793, when I had 
studied only about eighteen months, the gentlemen of the bar, most 
unexpectedly to me, proffered me an examination for admission. 
It was in violation of a general rule, and was a thing I had never 
imagined possible, nor ever thought of, until it was offered. 
I think it was immediately after my admission to the bar that I 
had the small pox. The way then was, that certain physicians by 
license from public authority opened hospitals for that express and 
only jDurpose. Secluded places were chosen, on every avenue to 
which a pole with a white flag on it pointed out to every wan- 
derer the danger of approach. I escaped by a surprise upon 
my parents, who supposed I was attending court until they 
heard that the disorder had already passed every crisis of danger. 
Farewell Litchfield and Goshen ! — a country of storms and winter 
and frightful cold and snow, and of hardy, active, reading, thinking, 
intelligent men, who may probably be set forth as a pattern of the 
finest commonalty upon the earth. As an example, take a glance at 
2 



14 



SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 



the state of society in Goshen. In that town of 1200 people, there 
was no snch thing as a poor or dependent family. No tenant ; no 
rich man except a single merchant. Every farmer tilled his 100 or 
200 acres of land, chiefly with the -labor of his own or his sons' 
hands. Until I left Connecticut I never had seen a person, male or 
female, of competent age to read and write, who conld not do both. 
In different parts of the town were library associations, as is common 
in New England ; and that in our neighl)orhood contained the most 
popular English works of history, most or many of the works of 
Addison, Pope, Blair, Beattie, and some of Johnson, Hume, &c.; 
and they were much read. I have attended an election there, and 
the order and decorum were not less than appears in divine service. 
No such thing as party was perceptible, even if there was some feel- 
ing of it. The man who should in any way, direct or indirect, by 
himself or by his friends, have intimated a desire for office, would by 
that mere fact lose it. I remember hearing my father say of such a 
man that " he shook hands rather too much," and seemed to be 
fishing for popularity. If he had not shaken hands so much, my 
father might have voted for him. These habits produced a wise, 
just, and stable government, and a most perfect obedience to the 
laws. The admirable form of the old Constitution of Connecticut 
was adapted to bring men slowly forward into public life, and to 
keep them much under public view. When long approved, they 
held their seats very firml}'' ; and the Upper House (Senate) of that 
State has at times braced itself against the whole of the public opin- 
ion and of the popular branch, and defeated an unwise but momen- 
tarily popular measure. It contuned but twelve men. My great 
uncle, Joseph Hopkins, of "Waterbury, was elected member of the 
Legislature, I think, about seventy successive times ; that is, twice a 
year for upwards of thirty-five successive years. George Wyllis, of 
Hartford, the third of that family, who was Secretary of State, was 
elected to that office by the Governor and Council or by the Legisla- 
ture, a little before he was 21 years of age, on the death of his father. 
But the election of a Secretary of State belonged to the people, 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 15 

except in the case of a vacancy ad interim. The people then, by a 
general vote of the whole State, elected him to the same office sixty, 
or one or two more than sixty, successive years, and he died in office 
at upwards of 80. Such were the habits of a people whose govern- 
ment was the most democratic on earth, except that of Sau Marino. 
But I am digressing. 

It must, I think, have been early in April that my father accom- 
panied me on a ride west across the tremendous country of the 
Ousatonic, and the fine country of Dutchess to Poughkeepsie, and 
there I put myself under the tuition of two young lawyers of excel- 
lent reputation. One of them is now enough known to the world as 
Chancellor Kent. Clouds have gathered thick over the advancing 
years of the other, Jacob Radcliife ; but with both I have maintained 
an unabated friendship of more than forty years ; and to tlie latter I 
desire to do so much justice as to say that, as a lawyer, and while a 
judge of the Supreme Court, he was, on the whole, excelled by no 
man of his day. My object was to acquire a knowledge of the prac- 
tice of the JS^ew York courts, which then was thought no small art 
and mystery. It used to be the sole business of a three years' clerk- 
ship in this State ; and I was to acquire it in eighteen days, from 
Monday morning of one week to Saturday of the third week. I used 
to study perhaps sixteen hours a day, and pass two hours more in 
the evening reciting to those gentlemen, or rather disputing with 
them. I kept life in me by now and then running a mile or two to 
a hill which overlooks the village. 

Accordingly, on Saturday of the third week 1 embarked on board 
the good sloop John Jay, and soon saw the wonderful city, the 
compact parts of which extended to St. Paul's Church and then up 
Chatham street to the tea water pump or nearly. I had letters from 
my uncle Dr. Hopkins to James Watson and Judge Hobart, and 
from Mr. Reeve to his brother-in-law, (since so celebrated as) Col. 
Burr. "We were five of us, New England 3^0Qng men, applying for 
admission. 

Burr made our motion, and when the Court sought to exclude us 



16 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

by an ex j^ost facto rule, he succeeded in exempting us from its oper- 
ation. 1 passed a most splendid examination, and have often since 
told my pupils that, if on signing the roll I had been desired to make 
out the most connnon process, I could not have done it. My license 
was dated on the 9th of May, 1793, the day I was 21 years old. I 
was received with infinite kindness by the gentlemen to whom I had 
letters. I told them I could no longer be a burden to my father, 
and that I desired them to recommend me to a new country, where 
I could most certainly earn $52 in the first year, since I could live 
for $1 per week. They recommended Tioga, and gave me letters. 
1 hastened home to Goshen. My father was at Hartford, as a mem- 
ber of the Legislature. My mother searched the till of his chest and 
found, I think, $10, or perhaps $10.25. With that and with a valise 
which contained half a dozen shirts, a set of Blackstone, a skin of 
parchment, bought at New York, and some black seals, and on the 
horse Phoenix, which my father had raised for me, and which 
Phoenix was the tirst in official order of all my line of Phoe- 
nixes, I bade adieu to my mother and dear brothers and sisters 
and took the road to an unexplored and unknown wilder- 
ness. What a moment for my mother — what a moment for me ! 
One hundred and ten miles west from Catskill, through a country 
almost all very new, brought me to the village of Oxford, and to the 
house of Mr. Benjamin Hovey, the founder of it, and who about 
eighteen months before had cut the first tree to clear the ground 
where this village stood. Here, too, I found Uri Tracy (of the class 
in college two years older than myself), and whom after nearly forty 
years I still count among the most valued of ray friends. Here I 
took up my residence. Hove}'- was a man of very strong natural 
sense and vigor in action, but of very little education. He had been 
unfortunate in Massachusetts ; his family had preserved life in this 
wilderness for some days by eating the grain from the ear in the 
unripe state. Suddenly he started for New York, laid open plans 
for the settlement of lands to the proprietors whom he found. He 
was taken up by old Gov. Clinton and his friends and admitted to 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 17 

shares in their plans and speculations, built Oxford on his own land, 
became the leading man of a very growing country, possessed a 
great deal of property, relapsed into habits of intemperance — lost 
all ; finally left his family and died in obscurity far West, This is 
the history of a great class of men. 

I settled at Oxford as a lawyer. My first law-draft I made by 
writing on the head of a barrel, under a roof made of poles only, and 
in the rain, which I partially kept from spattering my paper by a 
broad brimmed hat. In such a village as this, the first or second 
framed building was an academy of two stories, and Mr. Tracy was 
the teacher. JSTo Yankees without the means of education ! Judge 
Hobart, my friend and patron, was to hold the circuit in June at 
Owego ; and his kind notice of me was an excellent introduction to 
the county. The first case I ever tried was in defending a man 
indicted for forgery, which was death, and on which the attorney 
general of the State in person supported the prosecution. Judge 
Hobart sustained the objection I took, and the prisoner was acquitted. 
And in this country I rode 80 miles to Newtown (Elmira) to attend 
a Court of Common Pleas in my own county, and was too happy to 
win a jury cause and get a fee of $8, perhaps the most gratifying I 
ever received. Sometimes I rode all day in the rain, forded the 
swift flowing Chenango in water up to my horse's back, found my 
whole library and stationery wet by the operation and lost my way 
in returning up the river, the path — not road — being too blind to 
follow. In attempting to follow the l^anticoke in a freshet I was 
obliged to go in a canoe and forcing Phoenix into the river, to lead 
him swimming while the ferryman directed the canoe. But how 
wonderful is instinct ! The horse had never swam before, yet when 
he felt the force of the torrent, he breasted the stream, and dreading 
to be swept downwards he carried the whole of us up stream so far 
above the landing place, that the horse became entangled in floating 
tree tops and that I came near losing him. At another time I rode 
west to Cincinnatus, where at 18 miles was a house, north 18 miles far- 
ther off was another house, but in utter darkness at night I lost my 



18 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

way and passed the niglit in one of the most incessant, steady, pouring 
rains I ever knew. I visited Onondaga when but two white families 
were in tlie " hollow," and attempted a rude estimate of the weight of 
the water of the salt spring, when not as many as a dozen of the ket- 
tles were in operation or ever had been. My name is first on the 
roll of attorneys in Cayuga. I visited my friends at Goshen, and was 
visited by my aged grandfather at Oxford. 

1 became convinced that 1 could grow up in the country and 
become as rich as I wished. Col. Burr had, almost by force, made 
me receive a library of choice law books, which he selected, saying 
that "I might settle it in my will," if I pleased. But Mr. Watson 
suggested the idea of a removal to New York for the sake of the 
society of able men, of mental improvement, and of professional 
advancement. He afterwards invited me to his house, imported for 
me about $1500 of law books, the foundation of my present law 
library. He loaned me whatever money I had occasion for, and left 
me to pay it (as I did) years after, from the avails of my professional 
business. 

I went to New York in the fall or winter of 1794 and took up my 
lodgings in the princely and hospitable house of Mr. Watson, quit- 
ting with a good deal of regret my Oxford friends, my village half 
acre and charming new ofiice, and taking Phoenix back to my father, 
under the promise that he should be well and kindly kept as long as 
he could live. He lived more than twenty years afterwards. The 
winter of 1794-5 I employed in very intense study for counsel's 
examination. But in the course of that time Mr. Watson began to 
propose to me the project, which occupied my time afterwards for 
two years in Yirginia and two in Europe. Yirginia sold her lands 
at two cents the acre, and not only so, but the vender had always 
the right to make a selection from all her unsold lands in every part 
of the State at that price. She had (and I suppose has yet) one pub- 
lic office at which were sold land warrants for any number of acres to 
any person. These the vender located, by a vague and general entry 
in the county surveyor's office, without metes, bounds, direction or 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 19 

limits, and at his leisure afterwards caused the location to be sur- 
veyed by an official surveyor, by which his location would be reduced 
to certainty and recorded. Hence surveys and locations were inter- 
mixed in every portion of the State, of every imaginable form, size 
and number, filed on each otlier and intermixed, surrounded and 
being surrounded by each other. Hence in Virginia and Kentucky 
there arose a confusion in original titles, which it cost a long series 
of years, with statutes of limitations to adjust, and which were often 
finally quieted only because the parties were exhausted by conten- 
tion. But the worst consequence is of eternal duration. It is the 
want of all regular decisions for the purposes of social organization, 
intercourse and action. The method of laying out a country by 
geometrical lines, which after the times of the Pharaohs was first 
practiced in ISTew England, and thence transferred in more perfec- 
tion to the more regular surface of New York and to all the new 
lands of the United States, is an advance of inestimable value in the 
means of social economy ; and it is for the sake of this remark that I 
have made this digression. A single conception of a single mind, in 
a matter not then perceived to be very important, but by which a 
thing is done in the best, instead of the worst, way, and order substi- 
tuted for chaotic confusion, may happen to exercise an extensive 
influence upon the well being of mankind for indefinite ages. 

Upon the establishment of the Federal Constitution, capital and 
credit and commerce had sprung up in this country as if by enchant- 
ment. It was perceived that our lands had actual value, and that 
an increasing population would soon occupy them, and in view of 
the present and approaching convulsions in Europe, it was thought 
no unreasonable expectation that persons of fortune there would be 
disposed to lay aside something in the safest of all depositaries and 
at an accumulating value. These Virginia lands, already surveyed, 
were offered in New York at 4 cents the acre. But they might be 
wholly worthless, or the titles might be bad or doubtful. Mr. "Wat- 
son observed to me that he had capital ; that I had health, youth and 
activity, and law knowledge enough to investigate titles. He devised 



20 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

an operation, for joint and equal benefit, to be predicated on iny 
personal investigations, and to be effected bj purchases in Virginia 
if found safe and advantageous, and by sales in Europe. 1 have 
always supposed that his inducement was not so much his own 
advantage, as the hope of giving me a competence without my wast- 
ing a life in professional labor. I gratefully acceded to his offer, and 
on the 13th of May, 1795, set out for Virginia, with letters of credit 
and of recommendation, and on the 27th I arrived at Richmond. 
My letters brought me to the acquaintance of John Hopkins, since 
deceased, a most estimable man, and who for thirty years was my 
friend, and by his advice 1 applied for legal directions to a gen- 
tleman then rising in distinction — John Marshall. From Richmond 
I rode on horseback to Botetourt and Montgomery counties, being 
abundantly supplied with letters to many respectable gentlemen by Mr. 
Hopkins, General Henry Lee, Col. Covington, and several other gen- 
tlemen. I made a station at Col. Cloyd's of Montgomerj^, whose son 
Gordon Cloyd was county surveyor. On the 20th June, having se- 
cured the services of two good woodsmen and hunters, and loaded a 
pack horse with flour and bacon, I set out for a jaunt into the wilder- 
ness to explore some of the great tracts of land which had been offered, 
as well as to examine personally the nature of the country generalh\ 
We were in the woods twenty-two days, and the six last of them 
without food or nearly so. This adventure was one of the most 
remarkable events of my life. How Guyandott suddenly rose and 
cut off our return, just when the last morsel, almost, was eaten ; how 
we were driven to the expedient of going round the head of the river, 
into tremendous mountains with windfalls and laurel thickets ; and 
sometimes over beds of rocks all humming with the buzz of rattle- 
snakes beneath ; how I became partially deranged with fatigue and 
hunger ; how after six days our horse finally failed, while we succeeded 
in dra^sino; our limbs to a little frontier settlement of the kindest 
people on the earth — all this and more I may yet possibly draw out 
from my journal and from memory and give you. Time forbids it 
now, — and I must hasten to finish this memorandum already extend- 
ing much beyond my expectation. 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 21 

It was long before my constitution could re-establish its balance 
after this affair, or rather, I think my health has never since been so 
good. I spent some weeks at the Sweet Springs to recruit, and 
among other exercises went to the lead mines, near the border of 
North Carolina, to see my friend and cousin, Hannah Miles, then 
Mrs. Herrick. It was wonderful enough that a Goshen girl should, 
with her husband, a Dutchman from the Mohawk, fly to a mine in 
the Alleghany ridge ; but how odd the circumstance that business 
should call me, her friend and cousin, to the same place ! Late in 
the fall I made arrangements for another excursion in the woods, 
towards the Ohio and near the Little Kanawha. I was in the wil- 
derness about the same period as before. My company consisted of 
surveyors and their men, Anselm Tupper of Marietta being the official 
surveyor. The excursion was pleasant, though sometimes fatiguing, 
and at times we were without food. We killed a buffalo, deer, and 
turkeys. We were cheered with the music of wolves, when, at 
night, they scented our supper but, dreading our night fire, pealed a 
chorus from hill to hill all around us. I boated the Ohio, ran upon 
sand banks in the night and jumped into the water to help off the 
ark. After seeing the poor French at Galliopolis and treading on 
the soil now Ohio, when the territory did not contain 5000, perhaps 
not 1000, white inhabitants, I returned through the interior of the 
State to Kichmond and to New York, about 900 miles on horseback. 
The latter part of the journey was a winter ride. These two jaunts 
made me a thorough woodsman, and in the course of the latter I 
began to feel that sweet oblivion of life and all its cares and occupa- 
tions which explains to me why it is that even white men when once 
thoroughly inured to savage life, never desire to resume the habits 
of civilized society. I saw nature and the face of earth wholly unal- 
tered by the hands of man, and I saw men tliemselves in forms of 
society approaching the rudest ; and from their narrative of recent 
Indian warfare (as we passed by the half burnt logs which belonged 
to a dwelling where such and such a family had been massacred), I 
acquired that intimate knowledge of this department of human life 



22 



SKETCH OF THE LIFE OP 



which could not otherwise be had. I was taug-ht how a man misrht 
sustain himself when in a great measure unaided by art and unprop- 
ped by social order. To me it will seem that by these means I am 
enabled to look at men — at nature, at society — with other eyes, or 
from a better point of view, than those who have seen nothing but 
cultivation, improvement and civilization. 

On the 14th Ma}--, 1796, I again set out for Virginia to complete 
my land payments and titles, visited Kichmond, the Sweet Springs, 
the West, then again to Richmond, to Norfolk, Yorktown and back, 
and on the 11th of July to New York, where it was resolved that I 
should sail for Europe. I have journals of all these journeys, with 
minute statements of expenses. To me every step has a deep inter- 
est ; but my mind is shaded with a melancholy so intense, when I 
recur to my memoranda of any part of my past life, that I have 
hardly fortitude to do it. I am disappointed in this. I had pre- 
served papers for the possible consolation of age. But farewell ! — all 
these events are hastening into the oblivion of a past eternity, except- 
ing only as the great day shall reveal them, — I must hasten on. I 
have not even the time to commemorate the many civilities I 
received, nor the kind friends I made in Virginia. 

On the 12th of August, 1796, I sailed for England, in the ship 
Joseph, Capt. Mooers. The only other passengers were Mr. Francis 
Childs (who was first to edit a daily paper in New York) and his 
lady, a very sensible woman. On our voyage we came near being 
sunk by a waterspout, and I believe I was the first to announce 
that this phenomenon is, without all doubt, electric. It is an upward 
movement of the fluid (the cloud being negative) which takes up 
water as a vehicle. We arrived at Falmouth about the end of Sep- 
tember, and on the 2d of October Mr. and Mrs. Childs and myself 
took a post chaise for London. The residue of 1796 and the winter 
of 1796-7 was spent chiefly in attempts to negotiate my lands, of 
which 1 had obtained upwards of 300,000 acres, such as I thought I 
could safely and honorably recommend. American lands had become 
disgraced by the operations of Robert Morris and others, and I 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 23 

finally failed of my object. But I lingered in Europe, with the 
assent of Mr. Watson ; partly with the distant hope of better success, 
but more to seize that opportunity of enlarging my knowledge of men 
and things. Besides my business, my object was to see and learn all 
I could. London was to be seen and studied, but that alone would 
be the labor of years. I aimed to see all remarkable institutions 
and things — antiquities, curiosities, arts, men. I attended Parlia- 
ment, and heard Pitt, Fox and Sheridan ; the House of Lords, and 
saw Loughborough on the woolsack ; the King's Bench, and Lord 
Kenyon, Ashburch, Gross and Lawrence ; the Common Pleas, and 
saw Charles Butler and heard him give an opinion, and no man in 
England gained my admiration more than he. In the city, besides 
my commercial friends, I became acquainted with Mr. Vaughan, the 
author of the wet dock plan, since executed and shown as one of the 
wonders of England. It was then " a theory." At his house I 
use to meet Mr. Colquhoun, the celebrated writer on Police. The 
leading American gentlemen were Mr. King, our Minister, Mr. Gore, 
Col. Trumbull, the painter, and Mr. Pickering — the three last on a 
committee under the treaty of 1794. The friendship of Col. Trum- 
bull and myself has continued unabated now thirty-five years. I 
made excursions to other places ; my studies were diversified and 
general, not intending to practice my profession. I took with me a 
good collection of American History, &c., to prove the necessary 
progression of the country, and thence the necessary rise of lands. 
I drew up and printed the paper, of which there are two or three 
-copies left among my private papers, entitled " Facts and Observa- 
tions, &c." This paper seems to have fallen into the hands of Mr. 
Malthus, as it is referred to by him, in a note to my copy of his 
Essay on Population, w^ith a rernark that he did not know its authority. 
Once or twice I was on the point of concluding a great operation. 
The Bank of England stopped paying specie ; then was the mutiny 
of the Nore, and the reverses of the Duke of York in Flanders, and 
the success of the French. Many capitalists thought of seeking 
some safe investments in America, but did not love very plainly to 



24 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

avow it; and on the whole the firmness of the British nation, under 
accumulated difficulties, inspired me with great respect for their 
national character. 

On the 20th April, 1797, Judge Tudor of Boston (late Judge 
Advocate of the American Army), and Mr. Roope, a young English 
gentleman, and myself, took a post chaise and started for a jaunt to 
the "West of England. At Slough, we called on Mr. Herschell, and 
were shown by him his great telescope. But I must not attempt 
even an allusion to the objects we saw — Windsor, Oxford, Blenheim, 
Malmsbury, Bath, Bristol. Up the river Wye, Peersfield Walks, 
Tin tern Abbey, Welsh scenery, Hereford Cathedral, Llangollen, the 
cottage of Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby. My birthday, 
when 25 years old. The river Dee, Caernarvon, Snowden, Welsh 
harpers, Bangor, Isle of Anglesea, Hollyhead. Here we embarked 
for Dublin. 13th May, at Dublin, where we (Judge Tudor and 
myself, for Mr. Roope was to proceed with us no farther than 
Anglesea) were overwhelmed with hospitalities and kindness. One 
day we dined with loyal and the next with disloyal men, and each 
vied in telling of the atrocities committed by the other. The daily 
news was of massacres and the burning of villages, and our company 
at dinner was very often that of gentlemen driven in from the dis- 
turbed districts. We were pressed with more invitations than we 
could accept, and we fled (on 28tli May) to avoid them. I must not 
omit the mention of Dr. Arthur Brown, the Professor of Civil Law, 
&c., in the University, who showed us great and marked civility. 
He is the author of the work on Civil and Admiralty Law and of a 
volume of essays which he gave me. He is an American from 
Rhode Island. 

28th May. Took passage in a boat on the grand canal to Attry, 
41 miles, Carlow, Kilkenny, &c., to Cork. Here we had letters to 
Admiral Kingsmill and to Mr. Catlibut and others, and from all 
received great civility. To Killarney ( oh ! Killarney !), Limerick,, 
back to Dublin ; north through the country by Lagh Neah to Cole- 
rain, Londonderry, Giant's Causeway, Belfast, Donnoryhjodie, and 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 25 

Port Patrick. Hail ! Scotland ! Sunday looks like New England, 
except the plaids. To Lanark, to see Davy Dale's village and manu- 
factories ; to Glasgow ; to Edinburgh. Thence towards London, 
passing Alnwick and many wonders, always loaded with civilities and 
hospitality by the respectable persons to whom we had letters every 
where. But I must not begin to speak either of persons or things 
in detail. 

28th July, 1797. Left London for Gravescnd, and after some 
delay got on board a Dutch fishing smack, under Danish colors and 
getting a clearance from the celebrated Mazzinghi, who acted as a 
kind of government agent, we sailed nominally for Emden, really for 
Holland, passing in between Helvaesbeys and Gozee. The master, 
deceiving as to the place of landing, put us on shore at his little 
exquisitely neat village on some inner arm of the sea or river. 
Nothing can exceed the order, neatness and quiet decency of this 
Dutchman, his crew, &c. Our fellow passengers were a Monsieur 
Llardenburgh, whom I have since supposed as the Baron Harden- 
burgh, since celebrated as a Prussian diplomatist ; and several English 
merchants as agents, whose object was to get goods into France. From 
Capt. Staple's village, we coasted the arms of the sea or river, always 
higher than the land, and from which the distant villages, as spires 
or trees, were seen as if rising out of the water. We came as if 
from the interior and landed on Beeveland ; thence the great city of 
Middleburgh to Flushing. I had no passport on account of the war, 
but Mr. King had given me a certificate of being an American citi- 
zen. The French ofiicer at Flushing vised this, because he believed 
it false, for he supposed I was English, and that my object was to 
smuggle in English goods, which was the real object of my English 
fellow travelers. 

August 1. 1 took an open pilot boat and sailed up the wide, bois- 
terous Scheldt, sometimes landing and walking on Indian matting 
up the dyke and going over into the village below for dinner and 
lodging. This is Lille ! Those distant spires are Bergen-op-Zoom ! 
I am in the midst of names and things consecrated to everlasting 
recollection ! 



26 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

Antwerp, at the table d'hote of the Hotel D'Angleteere. The 
town is all old fashioned, Dutch built, with grated windows. The 
cathedral, the tower of 622 steps high, is as light and airy as could 
be made of wood, and brings nearly all the Netherlands under its 
view. What a country ! What a forest of towns and villages ! But 
grass grows in the streets of Antwerp. Saw the house of Rubens, 
town-hall, &c. An excursion to antiquated Ghent, To Eoom by a 
diligence ; on the canal to Brussels, — the park is very magnificent. 
To Lille. But the question was how I could get in, for this was 
now treated as the proper frontier, and here we expected a strict 
examination of our passports. Lord Malmsbury and suite were 
there, he negotiating about peace ; and there were many English in 
the place, and my dress was of course English. So, before arriving 
at the city gate, I stepped out of the " diligence " and walked care- 
fully toward the gate, thoughtful and much at ease, rapping my boot 
with a rattan as 1 walked, and seeming to take no notice of the senti- 
nel. He took me for a resident Englishman and let me pass. I 
had before taken the address of the hotel to which I wanted to go. 
Behold, I am in France ! Lille is called " Petit Paris." But 
what stupendous works are these fortifications ! ! As to our pass- 
ports in going out of Lille, the way was, in going out early before 
daylight of the morning ; our diligence was very full, and the other 
passengers smuggled me back out of sight ; many passports were 
shown to the officer at the barrier, and when he asked " Are there 
any more ?" some one of my friends answered promptly no, — and so 
we drove on through Arras, Mevin (all riddled with ball holes) and 
Amiens ; and 10th August to Paris, at the Hotel de Philadelphie. 
Early and late most intently employed in getting an idea of the city. 
In a few days an officer waked me very early and showed me a seal 
of the Republic, which I supposed was an arrest. " Why need you 
wake me so early, friend, I am not going away?" "They told at 
the Police, sir, that your habit was to rise very earlj' in the morn- 
ing, and I should not see you if 1 called later." It was a summons 
to show my passport, which had now many visas, and they gave 
some kind of paper allowing my stay, I forget what. 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 2T 

The 18th day Fructidor corresponded with the 5th September, 
and was the day of the great coujp cfetat, when Barras and two oth- 
ers of the Directory arrested Carnot and Bartholemy and a majority 
of the two Councils and sent them into banishment. All* Paris rung 
with the note of preparation some days before, and when we rose in 
the morning it was known, as if by instinct, that the blow had been 
struck. I walked early out to see the sight, and found cannon with 
cannoniers and lighted matches pointing down every street. Before 
this I had already met my old friend Savarin, as I accidentally 
walked the Palais E-oyal. I forgot to mention, in its place, that he 
taught me French in 1796 at New York. He had been a man of 
fortune, was a thorough scholar, lately a member of the Constitu- 
ent Assembly of France, fled in the Keign of Terror, had his all 
confiscated, was now a member of the Court of Cassation, again lost 
his office, and when I left France was on the staff of Jourdan in 
Germany (or had lately been). "It remains," said M. Savarin, "to 
be seen, whether the departments will submit to this," but Paris is 
France. Through M. Savarin I made many desirable acquaint- 
ances. Among others, Major JRostan, who I suspect, but do not 
know, was afterwards Bonaparte's Col. of Mamelukes, Mr. Mont- 
golfier, the inventor of the air-balloon, &c. At Madame St. Hil- 
aire's, 555 Rue de Bacy, lodged Mr. and Mrs. Barlow, the friends 
of my uncle, and my kind friends when we all lived under the same 
roof at Hartford. How very curious that we should lodge at the 
same hotel in France ! There, too, was Robert Fulton, and my friend 
William Lee. The society was excellent, but we spoke too much 
English, and through M. Savarin I got into a French family from 
Dijon, and afterwards into still another. I forgot the day of Bona- 
parte's return from his Venetian and Italian campaigns, and of his 
reception by the Executive Directory at the Palace of the Luxem- 
bourg. There I saw and heard the adulation of the French, and 
came back and told Mr. Barlow that the French never could be 
republicans. 

But I must not attempt to enumerate. I read, studied, examined 



28 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

interesting objects, learned French and Italian, heard lectures, stud- 
ied the drama and opera, and continued an infidel. My utmost 
efforts were used to acquire all the knowledge I could. I think the 
Commissioners sent by President Adams to treat with France were 
already there. If not, they arrived soon afterwards, viz., Mr. Charles 
Cotesworth Pinckney, John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry. They 
were there all the winter unrecognized. It afterwards appeared that 
the winter was spent in the X, Y, Z negotiation. Here I renewed 
my acquaintance with Mr. Marshall, and formed one with Mr. Pinck- 
ney, from whom (both) I received many civilities. My leading occu- 
pations were scientific. I followed assiduously the course of lec- 
tures by Charles, on Physics, with his most splendid apparatus in the 
Louvre. (He gave it to the nation, in a fright in the Reign of Ter- 
ror, but was allowed to use it.) Le Sage on Mineralogy a httle, but 
more particularly Fourcroy on Chemistry — a splendid lecturer. I 
liave still my notes in French taken from his lectures, written with 
a glass fountain-pen. General Pinckney and some of his family 
attended both Fourcroy and Charles. In the intervals, I read, made 
excursions, studied the paintings in the Louvre, the public buildings 
or other objects of art or of admiration. So passed the winter. 

In Germinal (part of March) Mr. Lee and myself took a diligence 
for Bordeaux to embark for America. " Farewell, Paris ! " said I, as 
I rose the gentle hills at the distance of three or four leagues and 
looking back perceived the houses first, then the churches, sink out 
of view. There — I can see nothing but the Pantheon and Notre 
Dame! At length the Pantheon disappeared, and the Cathedral 
which I had seen so flat and squat on an alluvial island of the Seine 
— that Cathedral which, farmer-like, I had estimated by pacing it 
and judged to contain about four acres, — that flat, squat, Dutch, barn- 
looking building, rose towering above all Paris, and was the last 
object which, turning often back, I could see when I finally said, 
'' Farewell, Paris ! " 

Orleans, Blois (the seat of good French), Tours, Poictiers, Angou- 
leme, roads some of them muddy enough for old Genesee, bad inns, 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 29 

the vignerons uncovering their vines and tying them to the " elms " 
and the elections for the year — these were some of the objects. The 
elections were conducted under the point of the bayonet. We saw 
the troops ordered into all the large towns, and the party opposed to 
the Director}^ — that is, the candidates and their committees — were 
put under arrest ; 14 in Orleans, as 1 remember, and 9 in Tours, &c., 
&c. Of course, the true republicans succeeded. 

We had few days to see Bordeaux, its splendid quay and fine 
theatre and decaying commerce. Then taking an open boat on the 

Garonne we got on board the brig , Capt. , a dull 

sailor. I tried to soothe my dreadful seasickness by reading Dupin's 
most learned atheistical work, " Origin de tons les Cultes," but I 
never for a moment admitted atheism in my heart. Blessed be thy 
name, O most holy God ! And I think that this doctrine, resulting 
from other less rank infidelity, may have alarmed me a little by its 
excesses, and given my mind some bias favorable to the subsequent 
reception of religious truth. A wide ocean, dreadful weather, and a 
poor plank only between me and water miles in depth, were circum- 
stances which ought to make any human heart wish to believe in a 
God of providence, and in His care. But though I believed not in 
Him as the hearer of prayer, nor in special superintendence, yet He 
bore with me and brought me safe home. " Bless the Lord, oh ! my 
soul, and forget not all his benefits." 

Sixty days of adverse winds and currents had worn me down to a 
skeleton with seasickness. Besides we were out of all provisions, 
except a little poor beef and bread ; and finding some fishermen on 
the banks of Newfoundland, we got into one of their boats, which 
to appearance was one of the dirtiest and least inviting of any vessel 
I ever saw. But the fare was excellent, the treatment kind, the sea 
smoother, the gales sweet and favorable, and the charges reasonable ; 
and in six days our kind fishermen landed us in Marblehead. My 
country — my country — how sweet to me are the very rocks of thy 
wild and rough shore ! 

To Boston, Springfield, Hartford, New York. I soon after visited 
3 



30 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

my friends in Goshen. It was now the sunmier of 1798. Thus 
ended the project which had kept me occupied for more than four 
years, and it resulted in a complete failure. I had not sold my 
lands; they remained a dead weight on Mr. "Watson's hands; four 
years of my life had been spent, usefully in many respects, but not 
as to advance me in my profession. Some precious years of youth 
and streno;th had passed, and I was now to beojin life in debt and 
without a cent. Mr. Watson still extended to me his hospitality 
and continued to make me a member of Jiis family as before. I 
took an office without delay ; but in August the yellow fever broke 
out with great violence and we were scattered. Congress had passed 
an act for the assessment and collection of a direct tax of two mill- 
ions. The commissioners to make the asesssment, of whom Mr. Wat- 
son was chaii-man, met at Hudson and appointed me clerk. General 
Gordon, the grandfather of Mr. G. Yerplanck, was one of the com- 
missioners, as also Moss Kent, the brother of the Chancellor. On 
me devolved the charge of digesting a system for the valuation, 
assessment, appeals, and also for the abstracts and returns. The 
commissioners sanctioned whatever I did, and the whole went suc- 
cessfully into operation. The plan and correspondence with the 
Treasui*y were probably well conducted ; but as a mere clerk, whether 
as a writer or calculator, I was miserable. 

In the fall of 1798 two events happened to throw a considerable 
amount of business into my hands. Mr. Michael D. Henry, a very 
respectable attorney, declining with consumption, left his business in 
my hands in his lifetime and after his death. And my friend Jacob 
Radcliif, Esq., being appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court, did 
the same. I had never well understood the forms of practice and 
was now crudel in my knowledge of principles, having forgotten 
much which was to be understood and acted on at once — not a sin- 
gle cause, but a multitude. How I ever got along with it is now 
matter of amazement to me. I studied and wrought to the utmost 
stretch of the powers of my fine constitution. At times I took a 
blanket and pillows to my office, and passed the night sleeping an 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 31 

hour or two at intervals, and studying or writing most of the time. 
I had an impression that the lawyers of New York looked unkindly 
at me, as not having served a " regular apprenticeship." I was too 
proud to ask for information or fee counsel, and was the first young 
counsel who had relied upon himself alone to sustain his client's 
cause. I was also the first eastern lawyer who had settled at JSTew 
York with the manifest purpose of making his way at the bar. 
Business increased and paid off my debts to Mr. Watson — I mean 
the pecuniary debt, for the debt of gratitude can never be paid. 

Your mother and I were married on the 5th October, ISOO. We 
went to housekeeping in May following in Broad street (No. 16) and 
a house rent of $1000 a year. By this time I had an office full of 
clerks. After either one or two years we removed to 274 Pearl 
street, a house which your Grandpa Rogers gave to your mother. 
Mary was born in Broad street; William, Julia Ann, and Hester in 
Pearl street; Samuel in the village of Geneseo; Woolsey and Sarah 
at my late house near Moscow, 

In 1806 your mother and I took a jaunt to Niagara Falls. It was 
to me a relaxation from labor which I much needed. We traveled 
with a phaeton and pair. It was a question of much speculation 
whether we must not sleep in the woods one night beyond Batavia, 
but it turned out that there was a house. I see a note in my journal 
that for such a certain part of the journey " no guide is necessary ! " 
But there was a four-mile woods in one place and a twelve-mile 
woods in another. It was agreed that no spring carriage could pass 
the road, and I left the phaeton and took a common wagon at Can- 
andaigua. Mr. John Wiuthrop and B. W. Rogers were with us on 
a great part of the road. 

In 1808-9-10-11, indeed ever after the election of Mr. Jefferson, 
the politics of the country excited a most intense interest. I was 
always a Federalist, a disciple politically of the school of Washington 
and of the framers of the Constitution, and all that I had seen abroad 
seemed but to increase in my mind the dread of that extreme democ- 
racy which is allied and leads to despotism. But the worst feature 



32 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

of it was, that the party was essentially French. The object was to 
subjugate the country to French plans of aggrandisement. I entered 
ardentlj' into the contest of party politics, and I do not think that in 
the retrospect I have aught to reproach in niy motives. But it 
engrossed too much of my time, as did also the affairs of the city, for 
I was several years a member of the Common Council. Besides 
this, when the embargo and restrictions came on, business most unex- 
pectedly diminished. By a kind of common consent, nobodj'- paid 
and nobody was sued, and the lawyers were starved instead of fatten- 
ing. Finally, and more especially, your relations on your mother's 
side were a very numerous connexion of people of unexampled pros- 
perity, and of no little love of the " pride of life." As to me, though 
I loved the pride of life as well as they, yet my business was never 
of the most lucrative sort, nor had I any knack of making the most 
of it. Mine was the business which came because it needed a hard- 
working, persevering man, and not because it was bestowed by pat- 
ronage. My family expenses were enormous, and I saw that I was 
wearing out life to gratify a vain ostentation for which I was not 
the better nor happier. I sought to get into the country and hoped 
to save my life by escaping the terrible labors of my profession. 

And a word about my professional life. I was excessively labori- 
ous, caretaking and anxious. I made my client's cause my own, too 
much so, and held on upon it, as they say, with the grasp of death. 
I was a stranger to selfish calculations, and having been brought into 
deep sympathy with my client, I could never learn to set up my own 
interest in my heart so as to obtain anything like just compensation 
for my services. In this spirit I undertook charity causes and 
fought them (one at least) with unyielding perseverance for years. 
1 repeated the old trick of working alternately with catches of sleep 
through the night, in which way I once went through a hearing of 
eleven days in the Court of Chancery, alone myself against two very 
eminent counsel. 1 was self-confident, even to presumption, and 
yet the greatest suffering of my life has been from diffidence. No 
description can give any idea of the throbs of agitation under which 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 33 

I spoke in court, or waited to speak, and wliat was to me melan- 
choly, it seemed not to wear oil with time. I almost never spoke in 
any court or place in this part of my life without much distress, and 
never without such agitation as took from me much of the power I 
should otherwise have exhibited. In subsequent life 1 acquired com- 
posure when speaking at the bar, but then the same distress clung to 
me when speaking in other places and on other subjects, until I had 
been long much accustomed to them. An address on temperance, 
anti-masonry, or at a public anniversary, would rack my whole frame ; 
and as these are post-obit confessions, I may now say, that for at least 
ten years after I began to use extemporaneous prayer in my family it 
was almost always performed with great distress, and I have seriously 
doubted whether that distress was not the foundation of my long dys- 
pepsia while living since at Albany. Even now in my sixty-first year, 
it so agitates me, if I expect to be called on to pray in public, that I 
am deprived of almost all enjoyment from the meeting. 

On the whole, my success as a lawyer was sufficiently encouraging. 
I probably held a better rank at the bar than any man of my years 
had ever done in New York. What I aimed for with such intense 
exertion was given me, but with it gall was intermingled, and I 
began now to come to the time when a merciful Providence was, as 
I humbly trust, leading me to Himself, though by " a way that I 
knew not of." I lived in a style sufficiently though not exceedingly 
elegant. My connections were in the best rank of society. 1 had 
public influence and popularity, though my party was not generally 
successful. But a little check in business cramped my finances. I 
began to see that with a rapidly increasing family I must reduce my 
style of living or leave the city. It was with difficulty that I met 
all my engagements on leaving New York. And although I saved 
my pride and glossed over a removal, as well as I could, by talking 
about health and country life (truly enough), yet in reality my 
removal dashed all the fondest hopes of my ambitious and proud 
spirit and was a sore and prostrating blow. Deep griefs took hold 
of me, and were vented in floods of tears, seen only by Him who 
seeth in secret, and thus I was taught to pray, or attempt to pray. 



34 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

In 1810 I purchased, jointly with your uncle, B. W. Rogers, a 
share in two tracts of land which had been reserved by the Indians 
or their agents or interpreters as, above all others, choice and delight- 
ful, — that is Mount Morris and the Leicester tract on the Genesee 
river. If the habitable globe contains any places more entirely excel- 
lent and desirable than these two adjoining tracts, I know it not. I 
bought merino sheep and went to farming. In 1811, I removed to 
Geneseo, the village of my old and excellent friends, James and Will- 
iam Wadsworth. From here I superintended my farm with unspar- 
ing diligence and care until I could have a house prepared. In 1812 
the war. In 1813-14 I was a member of the Xlllth Congress — an 
election which was contrary to my expectation and wishes, and to 
the duties of which my farm and building forbade my giving much 
attention. Besides, I had hardly a party to act with, for a great 
portion of the Federalists voted against all means to strengthen the 
government, a course which (much as I disapproved of the war, and 
well as I knew it was got up for party purposes, and that those pur- 
poses were at bottom devised by French influence) I could not 
approve nor acquiesce in. So 1 staid in Washington as little as I 
could, and disappointed my friends by taking but little or no part in 
the proceedings. In these same years I built my house. In August, 
1814, 1 laid out the village of Moscow on a plain which far and wide 
was covered with a young growth of oak and hickory, so thick as to 
be almost impervious, and such as prevented me from getting any 
just knowledge of the extent and shape of the plain, except by actual 
mathematical survey. But I have passed some scenes of deep inter- 
est. My brother Mark was agent for our company, who had pur- 
chased a large share of Mount Morris, and he began by sowing about 
100 acres of hemp, which we intended to raise for the JSTew York 
market. While we were making the first day's trial of some inven- 
tions to facilitate the cutting of such a harvest, he fell suddenly sick 
in the field, and that was the commencement of a bilious fever which 
for some time M^e expected would prove fatal. Our good cousin 
Mary Smith (Mrs. Ayrault) was almost alone his nurse and house- 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 35 

keeper. Expecting he would not live, I wrote a statement of the 
facts to my dear and excellent mother, then at Utica with my sister 
Susan. She came hastily on, with a strong presentiment that she 
should not live, and soon sickened. My father then left Mt. Morris 
to help to take care of my mother, and as we walked in the fields 
for some herbs he stumbled as if drunk, and immediately fell sick at 
my house of the same fever. My practice now was to ride to Mt. 
Morris, six miles, and see to the state of my brother and attend the 
consultation of physicians, oversee the work and employment, the 
food and payment of twenty or thirty men, or more perhaps, who 
were cutting hemp, ride home in the evening and attend to my 
father and mother. My father and brother recovered ; my mother 
died and is buried in the graveyard on the hill east of Geneseo vil- 
lage. A partition only separated my two parents as one lay dead 
and tlie other expecting to die. I heard my father call my mother 
in very affecting terms. Supposing him a little delirious, I said, 
"She is dead, sir; don't you remember it?" "Yes! I know very 
well that she is dead." He of course was unable to attend the 
funeral, but he would rise and look at the procession through the 
window. The physicians came to me and said they saw no more to 
do for him, " Well, gentlemen, let me know when you consider all 
the resources of regular practice exhausted ; when you do so, I will 
take my own course." " What will you do ?" " I will try baths in 
some shape, cold or hot." They retired again on this, and ordered a 
hot salt bath, which I personally administered by means of a mattress 
and blanket, the latter wrung out in the brine and often changed. 
On the second immersion a little sweat started from the forehead, 
and my father lived near seven years longer. 

One of the most delightful dreams of my fancy in going to the 
West was to have my parents near me, so that we might live in each 
other's society, and some in turn might close the eyes of the others. 
It was otherwise ordered, and I already began to see the clouds of 
disappointment gather around my new establishment. I cleared 
land, fenced fields, and multiplied my sheep. 1 built a house, a vil- 



9( sacRxcH car tsb urs op 



lig^ ani adfe aad Sum IwiLdijn^ F^roaBi t^ rir«r kit c^pevation^ 
<rrtwwM bodk to tibe piBe woiOfds^ Bear fiuree mile& But I made 
BfrovQiaeirits at 1^ g a B ttta a o MS war |»ieies of labcur and prod- 
am^ vluea in taxa I bad tbe wlieat of 100 aeres to stell, it wonld 
wnumm A a eadk ^ eenis per bi^iid tar anj qoantitT. gteat or 
SBoffl; aaaA tike v«i£ «£ ISOO sheep sold propc»tioiiallT low. or nearly 
OL Of ^eee eheep a adeet flock ei 300 ame ixed with more care, 
I presnm^ t&ooi amj oftber aaaga ever BBod. I ba^e the names (nnm- 
ftcEB^ txvauok aaad ped^ree of aD lohe breedos icgislcred, widi azmnal 
Bwagfeff fli^ Ibe iRwil of eadk. Aad mkSR meniioomg mx flocks, 1 
aaaat mot ^smgjdi tfe? sais^e * -^ - — — esdraaUe Mend, mv shepheid 
3Ii£eo£aa McSiaBsr^::- r the aaeii I have known, as 

laosl trsljr respe rent and devoted to mr 

iater^t. He w^- ^ds of SeotJand, and 

eefoM read Ikb !£&■ ^ iz. i;^ ^--^^^^'^ ^z u': re he eoold ^peak 

Mj ta& yeaffli c^ Mie oa ti!ie Geaeaee rr-^ : :f ^erj high 

eaofofflwiftat and ^orL Mt e aga g ca- r ^^le. were 

in^eiirtaart atsd merjr divixsLf e-i. Tlieie vae rnoeh en^ojrmeat in the 
^azioaB easterpriaes sl I was engaged. I wie in the fa" 

e€ w&ate^-' -— ^^ 7-' •-/ and mind I erer poeseaeed. I i 

pcaetieall^ jocfe sodii^g was too moeb for me. I ^ . - 

caed aarr pro|eeift witb aMisI ineeasaait and t^otow efiott, bnt aD 
teiaded to ^mppamtime^L Tht doada o^ adTexaitf gatikered, sjLd 
fte aibonns b^^ in best bard npoB aae;. A joal and raeanexful Prori- 
deaee ^oaoui aaaa^ ^■^^f^ b)f oae vnibo^^ oi, to make all m j eaiter- 
laiaea^ bey««i«r difigeadijf and eau^aOIj eoodoeled, to isane in lorn. 
B^ aaj- real esliaile bad gvesudlj nsen iii rztae, and aeaned enoogji to 
aKid^ ib t^ last icaort, all pooBble dpaS ci f m r i c g. As late perbape as 
1$17. & wras ciitliimiifti d on a Terr carnal revinciQ, wfdi fbe aid of 
fr^esiih, m wortit fTCOOQ' or ^T^J^Hf^f aad in two or tbree jeara after 
I wig ^lad to aeeept a baoik theA of ^^^fiOO for tbe wbole. Team 
9sher k was gradaallj' exptaiaed t&eit tbe nttar diaap pe a iaBee c4 
mamsT^ wboA led n ecd ok aad anaizirjr Aonaamda header to rain, was 



RAMtlttf, MHiKifi WCrPKms. o7 



i\w wQowmvy rrmill. if\' opnmHofifl Uy restore a vitiated ctirrency, and 
tliivt tlio vil.iiil.ioii wtiR l.lio fruit of tlie khora of politicians and dema- 
gogues. (Jni(u/i(l(l <ldl.ri(,n.t roi/M, pl,eol/anf/nr Ac/dm. 

I niuHt not loavo tlio (Jonesco river withont a tribnte of respect 
for the adniiniblo circle of Bociety which, new as the conntry was, it 
was our happinoBS to on joy. I mnst not begin to name individuals. 
Our visiting circle extended to Canandaigna, and so thirty miles 
around. Oh, what brilliant^minded women and what able, intelligent 
men were in that circle 1 What a tmly polished society ! Oh, that 
more of them had gained tlie tme knowledge and accnmnlated the 
riches that will never fly away ! 

Neither must 1 quit the place without a tribute of everlasting 
affection for your excellent mother. The disappointments of my 
life have often been to her a cnp of humiliation and sorrow. She 
had been brought up with no idea of any limitation of means of any 
kind. She knew nothing of life except as a scene of elegant and 
refined enjoyment and gratification. Judge, then, what was my 
anguish, when I was finally compelled to inform her that we had 
not the means to keep up our style of living in Kew York ; that I 
thought we must sro into the countrv : and when we moved, first 
into an old house that had been a dirty tavern, and then into an 
nntinished house, and then to meet the various occasional wants of 
the country ; and then, when I had finally made one of the most ele- 
gant establishments in the State, what must have been my anguish 
and hers, to find that we must leave a place to which her heart, as 
well as my own, had been wholly knit! Through all this and 
through the subsequent difficulties of life your dear mother has fol- 
lowed me. She left parents and many friends that were dear to her ; 
she has most kindly reconciled herself to very trying changes, in 
which my heart has often deeply sympathized with her, regarding 
her snfferino^s mucli more thaaimy own. Dearest vrife, this is for 
vou, too, to read when I am gone. Accept, I pray, as my poor 
aekuowledgmeut for all you have endured on my account. 

Losses came upon losses like the beating of hail. But the greatest 



38 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

was that money disappeared from the coimtry and propert}' ceased 
to have any but a very low exchangeable value. When afterwards 
I came to sell my Moscow estate, at a loss of $50,000 compared with 
its late salable value, I deemed the sale rather a fortunate escape. 
It left me in debt, thougii not heavily so, beyond all my means of 
payment. 

My father died at Mt. Morris in Marcli, 1818, and I buried him 
in the new and till then unoccupied burying ground on the hill west 
of the village. His death conspired with the unpromising aspect of 
all my prospects in life to make me sorrowful and thoughtful ; and, 
in proportion as I was so, I think I found myself disposed to hum- 
ble myself under the mighty hand of God, — to acknowledge his 
justice and to submit to his chastisement. As I now write this, it 
seems to me as if much of these expressions would truly represent 
the feelings of a heart renewed in His image, but such was not then 
the idea of myself. I however very well remember the time when, 
riding sad and lonely on my horse, my heart very distinctly said : " I 
will be on the side of Christ ; I will go and make my father's place 
good in his church." I do not believe that I then thought of my 
own state, nor reflected on the question whether ray heart was or 
had been changed or not. But I continued in my purpose to join 
myself to the people of God, and was received into the church at 
Moscow, where the Rev. Mr. Mason was then preaching. Oh, 
that it may finally appear that I am a member of the invisible 
church of the Redeemer! If so, then how merciful have been all 
the disappointments, rebukes and humiliations which a righteous 
God has administered to me. The best account I can give of my 
exercises, at or about this time, is very poor. 

In the spring of 1822 I sold off, paid off, broke up and traced my 
course to Albany. I had made every previous arrangement there, 
having been a member of the Senate and attended there during the 
winter. My object was to live by my profession of the law, and 
iifter much consideration and advice of professional friends I pre- 
ferred Albany to New York. Rent was low and living cheap at 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 39 

Albany, but with $2000 in hand I would have ^one to New York. 
Albany, before the canal was open, was rather in decay, and it was 
the place in the State where I had the least hold on the ground of 
personal interest. Before my wife's furniture and my own library 
were put up, I was taken down witli typhus fever. My excellent 
friend. Dr. Daniel James, carried me safely through it in three or four 
weeks, and it was followed by five or six years of dyspepsia. The 
most unhappy effect of this disorder was that it rendered me inca- 
pable of intense application to study or business. 

Albany received us with great hospitality, but gave me no busi- 
ness. I was, however, extensively known to lawyers in the city of 
New York and in all the country and I had a considerable run of 
bar business, which by degrees came to be poorly paid, that is from 
the country, when it was found that I was not exact in demanding 
my dues. Chancellor Sanford appointed me reporter in his court. 
I published his decisions in one volume, a book which I presume is 
exceeded by few in the English language in point of mechanical cor- 
rectness. I know of one typographical error in it, which I presume 
no other human being knows, or will ever find. I doubt whether 
any one other is to be found. I learned this habit of great exactness 
in proof-reading from Mr. S. himself. Indeed, he made it a condi- 
tion with me, and he read all the proofs once. I, and others also, 
read them with great care. With all these means, I lived. But my 
family was large. Some of the time — nearly all — perhaps quite all 
of them were in a course of education, and my pecuniary circum- 
stances were at times much straightened. Often then I spread my 
case before Him who hears prayer, and wonderful to tell, I often 
received relief from unthought-of sources, at the last and trying 
moment. Doubtless Thou art a God hearing prayer ! and let all my 
powers and faculties bless and praise Thy holy name. How very 
merciful and kind hast Thou been to me ! 

About 1826, and afterwards, I was appointed (with Messrs. Tib- 
betts and Allen) a commissioner, and continued by sundry acts of 
the Legislature, with various powers, in relation to State Prisons and 



40 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

Penitentiary punishment. "We built and governed the State Prison 
at Sing Sing. These engagements arose from the opinions which I 
had expressed and reported in the Senate (and the year previous 
liad expressed in the other house) relative to the old State Prison 
system. They led to ray essay on State Prison Punishments. The 
public benefit of the joint efforts of us commissioners was the estab- 
lishment of the new, or Auburn system of discipline, in this and 
many of the States, with the near prospect of its general establish- 
ment among civilized nations. So far as I can now see or judge, I 
suppose this to have been the most useful labor of my life ; and 1 
attach the more importance to it, because our system was violently 
attacked and held for a long time a doubtful existence, and was 
finally sustained with much difficulty. The celebrated Mr. Koscoe, 
of Liverpool, was our most formidable opponent. After all, the 
Legislature turned me out with much abuse and opprobium. But 
the system remains, much obscured, however, by the political neces- 
sity of a corrupt pecuniary administration, in order to keep politicians 
in pay. 

Tour grandfather Rogers died in 1826, leaving a much larger for- 
tune than we supposed he possessed. From that time your mother's 
dividend of his estate has placed us in comparatively easy circum- 
stances. Thinking that I had done enough of hard work in life, I 
now determined to renounce the pursuit of a thorny and ungrateful 
profession (except as an object of science) and devote my time to my 
health — my family ; to such benevolent objects as might fall in my 
way; to any useful purpose towards my age, generation and country ; 
and to prepare to meet my God. Oh! holy and blessed Spirit of all 
grace ! give me that preparation. 

The discoveries made of the crimes, the oaths and obligations, and 
the excesses of Free Masonry, induced me to join in some efforts of 
the Anti-Masons, while their cause appeared young and feeble. 
Since they became stronger, I aim to withdraw. Still I have great 
fears lest Masonry should resume its action and triumph. If it does 
so, then a final adieu to any government than that of the lodges. 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 41 

I expected to live and die in Albany, but in 1831, as you know, 
our Geneva friends suggested the idea of our removal to this village, 
and last May, ten years after we had gone through this place east- 
ward, we returned on our tracks to this charming place. So little is 
it in man to direct his own steps. 

Labor and penury seem to be accounted the great evils of human 
life, and as soon as our altered circumstances relieved me from these, 
I began to enjoy life in a way unknown before, and which can never 
he conceived by those who never knew toil, anxiety and want. 
But since our removal to Geneva my life has been one stream of 
enjoyment. I would here begin to enumerate my mercies, but they 
are more than I can tell, and if I should begin the account I should 
doubtless omit many. " I have all things and abound." I have no 
crosses nor cares. Life is made so exceedingly delicious to me, that 
I seem to myself an exception to the lot of man. 1 ask, with sur- 
prise and some fear, whether any disciple of the Saviour was ever 
without any thorn in the flesh, or what is he, who experiences no 
chastisement, to think of himself ? Oh ! thou merciful and gracious 
God, who hast made this part of the closing years of my life so 
exceedingly delightful to me, grant me the aids of thy good Spirit 
that I may rightly use these blessings ; may I give thee all thanks 
for thy great goodness. Oh, that I may not take my final portion 
in these friendships, happy as they are, nor in any of the temporal 
sweets by which I am here surrounded and with which I am filled ; 
but oh, grant me a still sweeter mansion, flowers that fade not, health 
that decays not, these same friends in immortal and glorified bodies, 
— all, all derived from thy blissful presence, from the smiles of my 
Saviour, and the society of saints and angels and the spirits of just 
men made perfect ! 

To bear my testimony to the very peculiar (as I suppose it) mercy 
of God, in this signal dispensation of earthly good, to one who has 
led a life so little worthy of it, is no small part of the object of this 
paper. "What else remains for me, thou God knowest ; and to thee, 
with all my heart and soul I most cheerfully, gratefully, submissively 
confide myself. 



42 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

Much remains to say : much I could add of advice and the fruit of 
observation on many subjects. I did intend, too, to have stated the 
plans of intellectual labor which I could wish to execute ; for since 
reason tells nie that, at the utmost, I cannot execute the half of 
them, and may not begin even one, so 1 could wish you to know 
what I had thought of. And it is very delightful to me to keep on 
writing in this posthumous kind of way, to children who have been 
to me so good and affectionate. But my remarks are extending too 
far. Time passes. Life is hastening away. 

Farewell, farewell, dearest wife and dearest children, till the heav- 
ens be no more ! And through infinite riches of grace in Jesus 
Christ our Saviour, may we all, all meet at His right hand in heaven, 
thence to go no more out forever! Amen. 

Sam'l. M. Hopkins. 
Geneva, 26th Dec. 1832. 



The following letter was written and addressed to a daughter, by 
Mr. Hopkins, on visiting the place of his birth and the scenes of 
liis childhood : — 

Sunday Morning, Oct. 14, 1821. 
This is a part of my journey through Connecticut, of which I 
intended to give you a particular account. This morning I am alone 
in my room, with no proper book for the day, and until church 
begins I may as well write, although 1 may but commence my story. 
You know I was born in Salem, a parish in the town of Waterbury, 
in N. Haven County, but brought up in Goshen, in Litchfield 
County. It has been my desire to see both places once more in my 
life, and on my way from Albany to Litchfield I was devising some 
possible way to glance at the place, which used to be oif the stage 
road, but behold, the stage passed by my father's former home at 
Goshen. Palmer, his successor, keeps an inn at this place. I told 
who I was and asked for a candle to look at my part of the house. 
All was just as ray poor father made it forty years ago. I looked at 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 43 

the room where I usually slept when a boy ; at my mother's bed- 
room ; at the East room, which my grandparents occupied when 
they came to lean upon my father; and then at the spare bedroom, 
which was afterwards my study and where I began some of those 
excessive exertions at my studies, by which alone 1 have been able, 
under heavy burdens in life, to bring myself forward among the 
ranks of men of education and of cultivated minds. In that room I 
compassed in six weeks, without an instructor, the usual reading of 
a year in the classics at school. The next year I brought home 
Euclid for vacation amusement, and for sixteen hours a day pored 
in rapture over the intellectual beauty of the combinations of quan- 
tities and the proportions of lines and angles and figures. I looked 
all about. The days of childhood and youth ; parents that nurtured 
me and are gone; brothers and sisters that played or worked with 
me, and sent me little presents of nuts and fruits at college; — all this 
and a hundred other things rushed upon mj' memory with inexpres- 
sible emotion. I was almost willing to bo gone. It was light 
enough for me to roam to the brook where I used to play in the 
water in summer, and slide and break my head in winter. Every- 
thing affected me. I could see that the fences were just where they 
were when I was just old enough to drive home the cows, and the 
bars stood in the same place as when I used to toil and strain to put 
them up, and get angry because 1 could not do it. 

1 looked at the foundation of the house again ; the stone abut- 
ments which support a little garden under the front windows, and 
they bore the marks of the chisel or drill when it was in his labori- 
ous hand ; with unsparing effort he placed the foundation just right. 
But there is no end to all this. It cannot interest you as it does me, 
to whom the days and the scenes and some of the friends are gone 
forever. So farewell, dear lost scenes and friends — I shall not see 
you again till the heavens be no more ! 

I ought not to forget that, a mile above, I passed the house of our 
Aunt Smith. Capt. Smith was a man amiable, modest, and just, — 
the excellent husband of our excellent Aunt Smith. Of feeble 



44 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

health, and in such a country, he could have but slender means, yet 
were his family the charming people whom you see, — which may 
show us how much worth and excellence often resides in retired 
corners of the earth with little worldly distinction. 

Passed on to N. Haven. Received every attention from Presi- 
dent Day at the agricultural oration, and also from Professor Silli- 
nian and Mr. Whitney, and even Father Hillhouse ; was taken and 
placed in the same pew, and walked iu procession with them. I was 
gratified to see, wherever I went, so many good men to associate 
with, and all of them so disposed to treat me with favor and distinc- 
tion. The society of wise and good men is doubtless one of the 
most valuable privileges and highest enjoyments of this life, except- 
ing only those which especially appertain to one's relations to our 
Redeemer. 

At Litchfield passed a day at Governor Wolcott's, charmed as I 
always was with the weight and excellence of his conversation, 
though not always agreeing with him in opinion. Passing through 
this country in the stage, and in the solitary hours of a night ride, I 
thought over the goodness of God which, among so many trials, bur- 
dens, dangers and toils, has still left me that best enjoyment — to 
use and cultivate my mental faculties, to love the wise and good, and 
to be loved by them. Pleased with the train of thought, and grate- 
ful to the Author of all good, I meditated in prayer. 

To my Father and my God : — Thou art my God, and I will bless 
thee, — my Father God, and I will exalt thee. I desire now to bow 
myself with gratitude and with deep humility before thy glorious 
Majesty, and to come before thee with a tribute of praise and thanks- 
giving for all thy goodness and mercy and loving kindness to me. 
Thou art my Creator. I bless thee that I am again led back by thy 
providence to this spot ; to the place where thou didst first uphold 
my helpless infancy. Here thou gavest me kind parents and affec- 
tionate friends, who nursed and smiled upon my childhood. It is 
thy power which guarded me from danger, and fed and defended 
me, clothed and sheltered me and upheld my life from infancy to 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 45 

childhood, from childhood to youth, to manhood and till this time ; 
amidst dangers and vicissitudes, and through all my wanderings on 
the earth ; in the cities of men, in the wilderness, on the stormy 
ocean ; from pestilence, from tempest, from war, and from the vio- 
lence of evil men, thy watchful and guardian care has still been my 
protection. When I was unconscious of thy power, that power was 
my support. When I denied thy providence, that providence still 
guarded me. When I was unconscious of thy power, that power 
was my support. When I sinned against thee, thy long suffering 
and forbearance still did not cut me off ; and now having obtained 
help of thee I continue till this time, desiring to witness, both to 
small and great, that God is merciful. After fifty years thou hast 
brought me again to the place of my birth, and to the land where 
my fathers were born. On this spot 1 desire to remember, before 
thee, that thou also hast been the God of my forefathers, and that 1 
was born of ancestors who lived lives of prayer, and in whose hands 
was thy written word, and in whose hearts, as I humbly trust, was 
repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Hitherto the Lord hath helped me. Thou hast cast my lot among 
the wise and the good, and given me the means of being useful 
among my fellow men. I desire to bless thee for the partner thou 
hast given me ; for my children ; for friends, relations, and social 
and mental enjoyments, and for the unnumbered blessings of thy 
providence by which I am surrounded. I have more abundant rea- 
sons to bless thee and praise thee for the gifts of thy grace ; that I 
am not left without God in the world ; that 1 am allowed to seek 
thee in prayer ; that I am disposed to look to Christ for redemption ; 
to thy Holy Spirit for light and comfort and sanctitication ; to God 
my Judge for reconciliation and pardon. What is my house, and 
what is my father's house, that tliou hast dealt thus bountifully with 
thy servant! What shall I render unto the Lord for all his mercies! 
1 will come before the Lord with thanksgiving and praise. I will 
devote myself to thy service. I will seek thy blessing and depend 
upon thy help, and may thy grace be sufficient for me. Go with 
4 



46 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

me, I beseecli thee, through the residue of life. Guide me through 
this vale of tears. Support me in sorrows and discouragements. 
Give me each day my daily bread. Leave me not, neither forsake me, 
O God of my salvation. Be a God to my children, whom I com- 
mend to thee. In all the changes of life, wheresoever those children 
shall live or wander or be settled in thy world, be thou their God and 
portion, their Saviour and Deliverer. And grant, O God, that in 
thy kingdom of glory we may all again be brought together to wor- 
ship thee forever. For what remains of life, give me grace to serve 
thee in sincerity and truth. May I remember the day is far spent 
and the night cometh when no man can work. Enable me strictly 
and truly to examine myself whether I be in the faith. Oh, help 
my unbelief. Bring me back from all my infirmities. Confirm me 
when I waver. May thy Holy Spirit guide and instruct me. Be 
thou my all-sufficient God. To thee I wholly commit myself. To 
thee, O God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I ascribe all honor, bless- 
ing, praise and dominion, forever. Amen. 



KEMINISCENCES OF SAMUEL MILES HOPKLSTS, 

CONTRIBUTED BY HIS CHILDREN. 



EXTRACTS FROM "FAMILY SKETCHES," 
BY PROFESSOR S. M. HOPKINS, MARCH, 1898. 



Of my ancestors, I know Httle or nothing. My paternal grandfather, named 
Samuel, was persuaded by my father, in the time of his prosperity, to remove 
from his hard Goshen farm and follow his son's fortunes into the "Western 
country." He was comfortably established in the young village of Mt, Morris 
and cared for, until his death from the deadly bilious fever of the country in 
1818. He was, I think, the first person buried in the Mt. Morris cemetery, the 
ground for which was given by my father. 

As to my father's physique, the portrait, now in possession of his grandson, 
Doctor George G. Hopkins, of Brooklyn, gives a fairly good idea of his spirited 
intellectual head and countenance. His soft brown hair grew thin in later life 
but never turned gray,— his eyes were a Hght blue. He ante-dated the era of 
beards, and always shaved his face carefully,— his thin skin obliged him to be 
very choice in his razors and their treatment, and he rather prided himself on 
Ms skill in keeping them in the best order. 

One could not every day meet with so fine a figure of a man,— he was just six 
feet high, and perfectly formed for strength and activity. When in Paris, at 
the age of about twenty-five, he was caUed 'He Phcebus Americain,"— upon 
his farm, and surrounded by his stalwart "hands," it was always understood 
that he was the best man on the ground. 

He was a fine horseman, and took pleasure in mastering a spirited or fiery 
animal. When in Albany, he always kept a good saddle horse,— the one I remem- 
ber was a large and powerful bright bay. Mounted upon this steed, with his 
own gaUant and chivakous bearing, he drew all eyes as he trotted through the 
streets. Later, in Geneva, he sometimes rode one of a pair of carriage ponies— 
a vicious brute which had thrown me two or three times, and which at length 
succeeded in leaving him on his back in the village street,— after that he never 
put foot in stirrup again. 

My father's adventui-e in farming having failed, and involving him in debt, 
he had no other resource but to sell everything on the best terms he could— at 
an immense sacrifice indeed— and return to the practice of the law. It ahnost 

47 



48 KEMINISCENCES OF 

broke his heart. He detested the profession, and was, in some respects, ill 
suited to it. He had missed his proper career, which was that of a Professor of 
Moral Philosophy or Political Economy, or teacher at the head of a law-school. 
He was essentially a philosopher and teacher. His knowledge of the princi- 
ples and history of law was unsuri)assed. He had the discrimination, the 
analytic skill, the candor and fairness, that woidd have made him an ornament 
to the judicial bench. But he was not hard enough to make a successful law- 
yer; he had too much sympathy and sense of justice; and a certain nervous 
difl&dence in public speaking made it impossible for him to argue causes before 
a jury. My impression is that his practice in Albany only just sufficed to keei> 
the wolf from the door. 

When, in 1829, my mother's father (Moses Bogers, of 7 State St., New York) 
died, and she came into a handsome income, it was with unspeakable satisfaction 
that he dropped his law business, and retired finally from the Bar, to spend his 
remaining years amid the delights of study, horticulture and congenial friends, 
in the village of Geneva. Of this happiest period of his life, when he was freed 
from all anxieties and worries, and Uved entirely at his ease, he has given some 
account, I think, ui his own autobiographical sketch. 

From the time of his own father's death, the sentiment of personal religion 
deepened in his mind. In his Httle "den " (as he called it), in his Geneva home 
— no larger than a pantry, he spent much time every day, in reading his Bible 
and books of devotion (such as Baxter's "Dying Thoughts"), and in prayer. 
So true a gentleman, so high-minded and honorable a man, so humble and 
devout a Christian, I have never elsewhere known. This is only a very scanty 
and imperfect tribute to him. It is hard for me to content myself with it, but 
if I went on, I should only expose myself to the suspicion of yielding to the 
influence of fihal partiality. 

The circumstances under which he abruptly left college without graduating, 
are, I believe, told by himself; of course he got no degree; and never had a 
college diploma until, thirty years later, he went to enter his son at New Haven. 
Perhaps the Faculty thought it was magnanimous in him, as it was, to place his 
son at the college where he himself had sufifered, as he thought, great injustice. 
They would not be surpassed in generosity; and so, of their own motion, they 
conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws ; this, at a time when the honor 
was sparingly conferred, was, no doubt, very gratifying to him. At present, 
when honorary degrees are often obtained through soHcitation and influence, 
and conferred on small lawyers and politicians, they bring no distinction what- 
ever. 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKLNS. 49 

NOTES FURNISHED BY MRS. JOHN M. BRADFORD, 
nee SARAH ELISABETH HOPKINS. 



In compliance with a request of Dr. Strong, I add a few items to the account 
already given, of my father. 

For sixty years we have kept this memoir in our own family, and it seemed 
at first almost like disobedience to his expressed injunction when, in response 
to much urgent solicitation, we gave our consent to its publication. 

My father desired that there should be no obituary notice of him, and noth- 
ing upon his tombstone, but a simple text of Scripture ; but there were many 
obituary notices — that written by Thurlow Weed closing with the words of 

Hamlet : 

" He was a man, take him for all in ali, 

We shall not look upon his like again." 

During my eighteen years of intimate comj)anionship with my father, I never 
remember to have heard from him one impatient, fretful or complaining word, 
or even an expression of indignation, except when some act of wrong or dishonor 
came to his notice, and then (I say it with reverence), his denunciations re- 
minded me of those of our Lord upon the "Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! " 

His charity, both in thought and action, was boundless; he gave every man the 
benefit of the doubt, and his hand was ever ready to help young men in sup- 
porting themselves, or to aid the struggHng to make their way in the world. 

He never would have made money by his profession, for he always took the 
cases of the poor and helpless. Through aU the years of our life in Albany, one 
of the many cases upon which he was engaged was that of a family of children 
cheated of their inheritance, which he was trying to secure for them. 

Our home was an asylum for dependent relatives — young people who were 
brought there to be educated, or older ones who were given positions in the 
household, and also of distressed strangers, and foreigners, who came with let- 
ters to my father — such as the exiled Greeks and Poles, some of whom found a 
home with us for a long time. 

My dear mother gladly welcomed my father's relatives, and he as gladly gave 
a home to hers, though this was not often necessary, nearly all of my mother's 
family being in prosperous circumstances ; but our table was always a long one, 
with a numerous company about it. 

In removing from New York, mth its gaieties and a large circle of friends and 
relatives, to Geneseo, my parents with four children, governess, and servants, 
set out by sloop to Albany, by carriage to Utica, and from there by springless 



50 REMINISCENCES OF 

wagons, travelling over rough roads with all the furniture of a large New York 
hoTise, for their destination. Piano, mirrors, pictures, and even the delicate 
bell-shaped glass of the clock which vibrated under a touch of the fingers, were 
transported safely to that distant home, inhabited as their friends imagined, by 
savage tribes, and yet more savage beasts, and by my mother spoken of until 
the end of her life as "the far west." 

Like Abraham, my father collected about him his flocks and herds and shep- 
herds, and began life in a new country, and among strange people, and these 
people were mostly Indians. 

The new house was prepared in Utica, but the family lived in Geneseo for a 
considerable time before they could move into it, and even then, as the doors 
and windows had not arrived, the openings were covered by blankets, while at 
night fires were kept burning about the house to frighten away the wolves. 

In a beautiful wood, overlooking the fertile valley of the Genesee, the colon- 
ial house was built. Fanny Wright, the first woman's rights advocate and 
lecturer in this country, who happened to be travelling through that region in 
1818, was met in the woods by my father and sister, and invited to the house. 
In recording her impressions she calls it a "palatial residence," but-my recol- 
lection of it as I visited the place years later, is, that it was a lai'ge comfortable 
wooden house, white, with green blinds and broad piazzas, with winding ave- 
nues leading to lodges at the two enti'ances, and only enough trees felled to 
open views to the valley below. 

Here the three younger children, and I, the youngest of them all, were born. 
Our nearest neighbors were the Seneca Indians, and their dusky faces are among 
my earliest recollections. Kinder, gentler, and more honest neighbors could 
not be found, untU white men brought them the "fire-water," thus corrupting 
and brutalizing them. 

The great chief Eed Jacket, nature's gentleman and eloquent orator, suc- 
cumbed to the passion for drink, and would lie in the woods for days and nights 
with his jug beside him, stupefied with rum, and the common Indians, after this 
passion for strong drink seized them, were ready to rob, or even to murder, for 
money to purchase the "snik-ke-yi" (whiskey). 

There were many interesting tales told of these red neighbors of ours, which 
I have not space to set down here. They loved my father, who was always 
kind and just to them, and they gave to him the name of " shin-ne-wah-ne ' 
(the gentleman). 

"When I was four years of age, we removed to vUbany, where my father 
resumed the practice of the law. Here he was a member of the Legislature, as 
he had previously been of Congress. At his "Legislature dinners" were always 



SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS. 51 

to be seen Thurlow Weed, Mr. Seward, and many other prominent and distin- 
guished men, -whose names I have not time to record. 

I remember Daniel Webster, and the Chancellors and Chief Justices ; 
La Fayette, on his second visit to America, with whom my parents took break- 
fast, and whom I was permitted to meet. The stately Governor Clinton walked 
up the aisle of the Second Presbyterian Church one Sunday morning, with 
Mrs. Clinton by his side as usual, and a procession of sons and daughters behind 
them. With the Governor walked a dignified gentleman, who attracted general 
attention, — this was the great Sir John Franklin, on his way for the second time 
to the polar regions. 

As we sat in the gloaming by our blazing wood fire in the winter evenings, a 
silent figure would sometimes glide in, and after a few moments would as silently 
steal away; this Avas Aaron Burr, despised by every one, but tolerated and kindly 
treated by my father, because of benefits received from him when he was a strug- 
gling young lawyer. 

In 1832 it was decided that we should remove to Geneva, in order that my 
father might spend liis last days near his much-loved sister Mrs. D wight. We 
made the canal journey on board a new packet-boat chartered for the occasion, 
the forerunner, though we dreamed it not, of the modern house-boat. This 
was our home for a week; the cabin was a pleasant parlor, with piano, centre- 
table, books, games and work; and it was an experience which we would 
gladly have prolonged; but it was ended by our arrival at our pleasant home in 
Geneva. Here my father spent five happy years, and here he sank peacefully 
to his rest, in charity with all the world, and "in the sure and certain hope of a 
glorious resurrection." 



GEJSTEALOGY OF THE HOPKINS FAMILY. 



The Hopkins Family is said by some to have come from Staffordshire in 
England. Others assign the town of Coventry in Warwickshire as its original 
home. As Warwickshire and Staffordshire are contiguous counties, and the 
stage-road from London to Liverpool traverses them both, and as family con- 
nections may have stretched across the boundary line between them, both of 
these stories may have their element of truth. At Coventry however we find 
a Stephen Hopkins so early as 1609, and there, on certain old buildings, the 
Hopkins crest is credibly related to exist to day. 

Goodwin, in his "Plymouth Republic," asserts that "Elder Brewster and his 
son Edward in 1609 became members of the Virginia family just formed, and this 
year Stephen Hopkins and his family, and other non-conformists sailed in the 
fleet of Gates and Somers to relieve the colony at Jamestown, Virginia. He is 
mentioned as lay-reader to Mr. Buck, chaplain of the expedition." Yet some- 
what later than this he signed his name with a cross, perhaps like Peregrine 
White (born in the Mayflower, the first white child bom in New England, 
November 20, 1620, and died in 1704), "who in youth used his pen in a forcible 
manner, but in his last days made his mark in his will." 

The vessel destined for Virginia was shipwrecked off the coast of Bermuda. 
This shipwreck was not simply the means of discovering the island. It resulted 
in returning to England in 1611 or 1612 a man designed by Providence to 
become one of the most prominent of the Plymouth Pilgrims. 

When the Plymouth Colony was projected, it was only natural that the same 
love of adventure and of freedom which had led Stephen Hopkins to sail for 
Virginia should lead him to sail for New England. His hardships in Bermuda 
gave him an excellent preparation for colonizing the northern portion of our 
western continent. At any rate he is the fourteenth in the list of the immortal 
forty-one who in December, 1620, signed the compact in the cabin of the 
Mayflower. 

Stephen Hopkins was always called "Mister " (= Master) though only twelve 
persons in the list of the Mayflower passengers have this prefix to their names. 
He was the constant companion of Miles Standish in his military expeditions, 
and he was associated with Winslow in his embassy to Massassoit. It is said 
that he was a dealer in leather. He was certainly in the beaver-trade with Mr. 
John Atwood of Plymouth, which rendered possible his falling in with other 
skins suitable for tanning purposes. 

52 



GENEALOGY OF THE HOPKINS FAMILY. 53 

Before he left England, Stephen Hopkins had two children, Giles and Con- 
stanta, by a first wife, and at least one other named Damaris, by a second wife. 
In Bradford's "History of Plymouth Plantation" (pp. 448, 452), we find the 
list of passengers in the Mayflower. Among them are "Stephen Hopkins and 
Elizabeth his wife, and two children, Giles and Constanta, both by a former 
wife, and two more by this wife, called Damaris and Oceanus, the last bom at 
sea, and two servants, Edward Doty and Edward Litster." It is plausibly 
maintained that whUe Giles was the eldest son of Stephen by his first wife, 
there was a second son John, also by the first wife, and that this John, left 
behind in England on account of the second wife's jealousy and coming himself 
to Boston thirteen years after, is the ancestor of all our Hopkins tribe. 

Certain it is that Elizabeth Hopkins exercised such influence over Stephen 
that he made her son Caleb his heir, regardless of the rights of GUes, his 
eldest son by the former wife. It is also curious to find that Giles's first son 
was named Stephen, and that his second son was named John. The names 
Stephen and John indeed succeed each other continuously during the early 
history of the family. What seems to be the record of Stephen's second mar- 
riage at St. Mary's, Whitechapel, London, reads simply: "StejAen Hopkins 
and Eliza Fisher, March, 1617." The record of marriages at St. Mary 
Le Strand, London, add other family names to the list: "November 23, 1612, 
John Hopkins and Ann Tumber "; "February 15, 1616, Hugh Eichardson and 
Mary Hopkins." The "John " here mentioned may possibly be the brother of 
Stephen, from whom John of Hartford was named. The name Samuel is also 
perpetuated in the subsequent history of the Hopkins family. And, lest all 
these records from London churches should seem impertinent, we must remem- 
ber that Bradford gives Stephen Hopkins as one of the Mayflower passengers 
"from the London section." 

Thus an argument has been constructed to prove that the Hopkins race is 
descended from Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower. We can trace our descent 
with certainty to John Hoi^kins who came from England to Massachusetts with 
the Eeverend Thomas Hooker in 1633. It would be very pleasant to know 
that this John Hopkins was the Mayflower Stephen's son by the first mar- 
riage, early deprived of his mother by her death and left behind in England 
by his father thirteen years before. The age and name of the son, and the 
name which the son in turn gave to his son, corroborate the surmise. Dr. 
Samuel Hopkins of Newport, and President Mark Hopkins of WiUiams Col- 
lege, although their biographers throw doubt upon this genealogy, both 
inchned to the behef that Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower was their ances- 
tor. Yet the first link of connection still remains somewhat hypothetical, and 



54 GEITEALOGT OF THE HOPKINS FAMTLT. 

onr descent from so distmguislied a member of the original Plrmoutli Com- 
pany cannot be considered as absolutely proved. 

Samuel Miles Hopkins, in the sketch of his own life which follows, claims 
that his ancestors were Puritans as far back as the days of Queen Elizabeth, 
and he adds that they were uniformly honest men. "We can at any rate pride 
ourselves on our forefathers from the days of John Hopkins down. As has 
been already said, he came from England to Massachusetts with the Reverend 
Thomas Hooker in 1633. In that same year he married a wife named Jane. 
Some member of the family has seen a history in which was written in pencil- 
mark, after the word "Jane," the word "Strong," making it possible that the 
Strongs and the Hopkins foregathered even thus early. 

John Hopkins was admitted freeman in Cambridge in 16S4, the same year 
that his son Stephen was bom. When the Eeverend Thomas Hooker became 
a founder of the Connecticut Colony in 1636, John Hopkins apparently went 
-with him to Hartford- The records of that Colony at any rate make honorable 
mention of him so early as 1639. He is called "juror" in that year, and 
*' townsman'' in 16riO. He was a miller, and was the partner of Governor 
Edward Hopkins of Connecticut. He owned a farm south of Mill River, near 
the site of the old Charter Oak, and he is commonly called "John Hopkins 
of Hartford." John Hopkins, bom in England probably about 1613, died at 
Hartford, Conn., in 1654, leaving two children, Stephen and Bethia. This 
name Bethia, like Beth, Bertha, and Berthia, was perhaps one of the nicknames 
for Elizabeth with which the age abounded, and it would be a singular confir- 
mation of relationship if John Hopkins of Hartford in a forgiving spirit named 
his daughter Bethia after his stepmother, as he had named his son after his 
father Stephen. 

Stephen Hopkins of Hertford, in the second generation, was bom in 1634; 
was made freeman in 1651 ; married Dorcas Bronson, daughter of John Bron- 
8on of Farmington, who died May 10th, 1697. He had six children, John 
Stephen, Ebenezer, Joseph, Dorcas, and Mary. He built the mill in "Waterbury 
in 16S0, but gave it to his son John to run, he himself never leaving Hartford. 
He died at Hartford, in October, 113S9. 

In the third generation, John Hopkins, eldest son of Stephen, was bom in 
1665. He married, in 1683, Hannah (Rogers?), who died ]May 30, 1730. He 
was Sergeant Ensign and Deputy to the General Court for sixteen years. He 
was " The Miller " of "Waterbury, where he had allotted to him twenty acres, and 
also a home-lot, in consideration of his usefulness to the town as a miller. 
"Waterbury was at first called Salem. John Hopkins died November 4, 173*2. 
His children were John, Consider, Stephen, Timothy, Samuel, Mary, Hannah, 
Dorcas — eight in all 



GENEALOGY OF THE HOPkInS FAMILY. 55 

In the fourth generation, Stephen Hopkins, fourth child of John, was born 
November 19, 1689. He married Susannah Peck, of Wallingford, in 1717. He 
lived at Waterbury, Conn. , and died there January 4, 1769. His brother Joseph 
■was elected to the Legislature, haK-yearly, for seventy successive times. His 
younger brother Timothy (1691-1749) was the father of Dr. Samuel Hopkins 
(1721-1803) the noted theologian of Newport, R. I. ; and Samuel's youngest 
brother Mark was the father of Archibald Hopkins and the grandfather of 
President Mark Hopkins of WiUiams College (1802-1887). 

In the fifth generation, Stephen Hopkins, son of the preceding Stephen, was 
born June 28, 1 719. He married Dorothy Talmadge of Long Island for his 
first wife, and she was the mother of his son Samuel. For his third wife he 
married widow Ann Miles of Wallingford, the mother of Samuel's wife Mary. 
Stephen Hopkins died at Waterbury in 179G. 
\. In the sixth generation, Samuel Hopkins was bom November 10, 1748. He 
removed from Waterbury, then called Salem, to Goshen, Conn., in 1774, and 
there spent most of his days. In 1771, he married, as we have already seen, 
Mary Miles, a daughter of his stepmother, his father's third wife. Mary Miles 
Hopldns was born October 9, 1753, and died September 19, 1811. Samuel was 
thirteen times elected FkCpresentative in the Connecticut General Assembly. 
He was a man of large reading, of Literary tastes, but especially of theological 
acumen. He was the elder brother of Dr. Lemuel Hopkins the poet, who was 
bom at Waterbury in 1750, and died at Hartford in 1801. 

Samuel Hopkins served as a soldier in the War of the Revolution. In the 
year 1776 he enhsted at Winchester and marched to the defense of New York. 
Samuel Miles Hopkins, in the memoir to which this genealogical account is an 
introduction, says: "I remember my father being absent with the militia who 
marched to the defense of New York in 1776. " The Hopkins family has been 
more noted for its achievements in literary than in military afi'airs, yet at least 
one member of the family risked something as a soldier in the War of Inde- 
pendence. It may also be remembered that one of the great-grandsons of 
Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower wrote "Stephen Hoi^kins," with a weak 
hand but a stout heart, beneath the Declaration of Independence, while the 
signer's brother was Ezekiel Hopkins, the first Admiral of the American Navy, 
and the equal in rank with Washington himseK. 

In 1809, with his son Mark, Deacon Jesse Stanley and others, Samuel Hop- 
kins removed from Goshen, Conn., to Mount Morris, N. Y., and he died at 
Mt. Morris, March 19, 1818. He had sis children, Samuel Miles Hopkins, born 
May 9, 1772, died October 8, 1837; PoUy Hopkins, born October 16, 1775, died 
August 17, 1872; Mai-k Hopkins, born March 9, 1778, died May 22, 1832; Susan 



56 GENEALOGY OF THE HOPKINS FAMILY. 

Miles Hopkins, born March 22, 1782, died August 30, 1860; Frederick MUes 
Hopkins, born January 22, 1791, died February 20, 1879; Dudley Hopkins, 
died in infancy, 1794. 

In the seventh generation, Samuel Miles Hopkins, the author of the autobio- 
graphical sketch which follows, was born, as has been said. May 9, 1772. In 
1800 he married Sarah Elizabeth Rogers of New York City. His children were 
seven: Mary Elizabeth Hopkins (Mrs. William Gordon VerPlanck), born April 
13, 1802, died February 28, 1857; William Rogers Hopkins, bom January 2, 
1805, died November 12, 1876; Julia Anne Hopkins (Mrs. WiUiam E. SiU) born 
February 22, 1807, died March 5, 1849; Hester Rogers Hopkins (Mrs. Charles 
A. Rose), born November 5, 1808, died October 8, 1845; Samuel Miles Hop- 
kins, D. D., born August 8, 1813, for many yeara Professor in the Auburn 
Theological Seminary; Woolsey Rogers Hopkins, bom July 14, 1815; Sarah 
Elizabeth Hopkins (Mrs. John M. Bradford), bom August 20, 1818, 



ANCESTRY OF SAMUEL MILES HOPKINS, SUMMARIZED. 



l8t Generation 



John Hopkins 
of Hartford 
1613f?)-lP54-41 
two children 



1633 

=^ Jane (Strong ?) 
of Boston (?) 
died(?) 

two children 

_ 



2nd Generation - 



3rd Generation 



4th Generation 



5th Generation 



6th Generation 



Stephen Hopkins 
of Hartford 
1634-1689-55 
six children 



John Hopkins 
of Waterbury 
1665-1732-67 
eicht children 



Stephen Hopkins 
of AVaterbury 
1689-1769-80 
six children 



Stephen Hopkins 
of Waterbury 
1719-1796-77 
six children 



Samuel Hopkins 
of Goshen 
1748-1818-70 
six children 



1664 (?) 



Dorcas Bronson 
of Farmington 
died 1697-57 (?) 
six children 



1683 

^ Hannah (Rogers?) 
of Waterbury 
died 1730-70 (? ) 
eight children 



1717 

= Susannah Peck 

of Wallingford 
died 1755-75 
six children 



1747 

== DORTHY TaLMADGE 

of Long Island, 1st wife 
died 1761-35 (?) 
five children 



1771 



Mary Miles 

of Wallingford 
died 1811-58 
six children 



z8oo 

7lh Generation - - Samuel Miles Hopkins = Sarah Elisabeth Rogers 
born May 9, 1772 born Feb. 1. 1778 

died Oct. 8, 1837 died Dec. 17, 1866 

seven children seven children 



^; SiSi-Sfej?;!-?:'- 



